Battered Souls
by Wickedgal08
Summary: When a mysterious illness strikes Elijah, causing him to confuse Elena with former love Tatia, the whole Original family must band together with Elena to try and save his life. AU, set after 3x20. Pairings include Elena/Elijah, Klaus/Caroline etc.
1. Haunted

Battered Souls

….

Chapter 1 ~

Haunted

...

Summary: When a mysterious illness strikes Elijah, causing him to confuse Elena with former love Tatia, the whole Original family band together with Elena to try and save his life. Elena/Elijah, with a good dose of the Original family as a side dish ;) A fic that plays havoc with canon – in this story, Alaric didn't complete the transition, so is dead for all intents and purposes (sorry readers) – and is set just after the dance in 3x20.

….

He couldn't quite say for sure what brought it on, the first signs of illness. He'd not been bitten by a werewolf, and there was nothing to suggest foul play or witchcraft had had a hand in what was happening, but there was something supernatural at play here which he couldn't quite put his finger on.

Elijah, who was always keen to amend his past behaviour, while upholding the traditional values he always admired in people (certain people, in particular), never felt uneasy, never let his confidence falter for even a moment, and yet in the midst of returning back into Mystic Falls, with the assurances of his siblings that any threat to them had been extinguished (aside from the Salvatores who, in truth, weren't really threats at all), something had struck him.

He'd ignored it at the time, pushing it aside like it hadn't mattered at all. Instead, he'd reunited with his siblings, even Klaus, who he knew instinctively he couldn't trust anymore, but yet still loved all the same (as to be expected, due to their bond that ran deeper than anyone could ever have known), and set about establishing permanent quarters in Klaus' house.

Kol had come bounding back like a faithful puppy (albeit a puppy with the tendency to bark and snap to the point where even he, the ever patient brother, had to pinch the ridge of his nose and restrain his temper), quickly claiming the next best room (naturally), proceeding afterwards to deliver perfectly executed insult after perfectly executed insult in his sister's direction, which had caused her nose to flare and her temper to rise to the surface.

In the midst of all the drama, he'd found himself zoning out for the briefest of moments, a queer feeling taking over for a short period of time. Though he regained his composure quickly afterwards without any of his siblings knowing otherwise, it had still staggered him that he'd lost focus so easily, and so he'd made a valiant effort in trying to anchor himself to the presence.

Now, he found himself sipping delicately at the wine Klaus had poured them all, watching as Rebekah kept shooting dirty (but secretly affectionate) looks in Kol's direction, while Klaus himself seemed to spread himself on the couch, an air of vindication surrounding him.

Elijah wanted to savour the victory, wanted to relish the fact that nothing could vanquish them, but a part of him knew that immortality and invincibility remained too separate qualities to possess; immortal though they were, he wasn't entirely convinced they were invincible as well. It wouldn't be fair to claim they were, particularly since they were inarguably responsible for the loss of thousands of lives over the years, and so to relish this collaborated victory felt wrong somehow.

"What's wrong, dear brother?" Klaus enquired drily, noting his brother's absent-mindedness. "How come you are so deep in thought and not joining in with our celebrations?"

"Leave him alone, Nick. It's nice that_ one_ of us can remain quiet for so long," Rebekah chipped in, aiming this particular blow in the direction of Kol, who rolled his eyes and allowed his head to loll back.

"I remain perturbed by the fact we have yet to hear from the Salvatores, who clearly will not let our continued existence remain a fact," Elijah lied smoothly, covering up his own weakness.

Rebekah let out a derisive snort, clearly unworried by that scenario. Klaus likewise remained visibly sceptical, and Kol just didn't even contemplate the matter at all, merely continued shooting mischievous looks in his sister's direction, which did not go ignored for very long.

"Relax. They'll be in mourning over the loss of their dear friend, Alaric, therefore unlikely to attack any time soon," Klaus pointed out, pouring himself another drink. "You must savour the spoils that come after winning a war, Elijah. Haven't we been over this many times before?"

Elijah inclined his head briefly, touching the side of his head as a brief flicker of pain emerged.

It was unlike him, and his very nature, to feel pain like this, unless of course someone was directing it at him. Puzzled, he began to reel through the various options which might've explained it, but nothing seemed realistic enough to be considered true, so, reluctantly, he let it go again.

"I say we throw another ball to celebrate," Rebekah announced, rising fluently to her feet, her sunshine gold hair falling gracefully down her back. "Since I've been deprived of _two _school dances, I say it's only fair I get to plan and organise another one."

"And doubtless, something will keep you from this one too," Kol snickered, remaining unimpressed as Rebekah sped towards him, her eyes bleeding irritation.

Elijah fought the urge to roll his eyes. He enjoyed the occasional banter between his siblings, but, really, Rebekah and Kol could really push the boat out sometimes.

Klaus just looked amused, casting Elijah a look as if to say _let them be, brother. It's all in good spirits._

It was hard for Elijah sometimes to completely relate to his siblings, who let their tempers frequently overrule them. He wasn't pretending he was virtuous by any means, but when he had to be cruel, it was methodical, carefully planned out to avoid any more unnecessary unpleasantness.

Was that his excuse for what he'd put Elena through that night? That it might've been cruel, but it was methodical, it had a purpose? No, he knew there was no excuse suitable enough to justify putting an innocent human in such peril. A part of him knew he'd been punishing for her lying to him, and the fact she was the most useful hostage any of the Originals could dream of using made his manipulatory techniques that much more transparent (and despicable).

But gathering from what little Rebekah had told him about what had gone down between them in the tunnels, he knew Elena had shown admirable strength even then. He didn't know why it constantly surprised him when she showed such displays of strength; if her ancestors were anything to go by, determination and strength were just two qualities destined to be a part of her.

He blinked suddenly, again feel this heavy wave of pain wash over him. He swayed a little on the spot, then recovered, finally feeling a little worried, unsure what was even happening with him.

Rebekah, perceptive as always, spotted his odd behaviour at once.

"Elijah?" She walked up to him, resting a hand on his arm. "Are you okay?"

He blinked, suddenly seeing her with longer hair, plaited at the top the way she'd always done in many, many centuries ago.

"What – What's happening?" he murmured, putting a hand to his head, ignoring Rebekah as he turned away.

He heard Klaus and Kol cautiously rise to their feet, but he blocked out them out for the moment, aware of a dull pain throbbing in his chest. Stretching, he tried to pass it off as just a moment's weakness, but as he slowly turned, he saw Klaus also with longer hair, and he stared, rendered speechless.

He became aware of the voices surrounding him, but couldn't register anything, not even the context of what they were saying.

"Elijah?"

"Is he... Is this some sort of side effect from mother's death?"

"Assuming of course she's dead for good. We can never be quite sure what she's doing on the other side."

"Elijah." This was Rebekah speaking. "Elijah, are you alright?"

He blinked, instantly back in the present.

"Yes," he responded, giving her a curt smile. "I'm just experiencing some mild discomfort. I assume it's because I haven't had blood in a while."

"Define _a while_," Kol demanded, looking grim, every part of him tensed up, as though permanently prepared for a fight of some kind.

Elijah looked down, unable to quite articulate his own explanation because he knew what his siblings were going to say, could practically hear the jibes and insults already. He was an honourable man, or so he liked to believe, and yet even he knew what he was about to say would sound absolutely incredible, and he wasn't quite sure if there wasn't a smidgen of selfishness hidden amongst the honour in his actions.

"I haven't divulged in a live..._snack ..._since the night I forced Elena into the tunnels, and made Rebekah play captor," he confessed, already seeing the spark of judgement in Rebekah's eyes.

Klaus rolled his eyes, while Kol seemed to contemplate this briefly.

"Elijah, we've been through this. You don't need to feel guilty," Rebekah said, her tone clipped, cold. "My actions – my threats – were my own. All you did was present me with an opportunity to exact a little payback, like any good brother would."

Elijah glanced at her.

"And I thought _I _made it clear – we were made into vampires by our mother, but we became monsters by our actions. Putting aside her former actions, Elena is still human. She's still pure and innocent and we continue to corrupt her world like the arrogant beings we are."

Kol stared. "He's sicker than we thought."

"Not _sicker_, Kol – wiser," Elijah corrected, his voice as hard as steel.

"What say you to this, Nick?" Rebekah demanded, turning towards Klaus, who seemed to be deep in thought.

He looked up briefly, meeting Elijah's eyes for half a second.

"I think it's foolish of him to dwell on doing what he needed to do to ensure our survival," he eventually said.

Rebekah nodded her approval; Kol remained sceptical, sensing (astutely) there was a _but_ there somewhere.

"_But _he cannot criticise dear Elijah when he's also been giving his heart away to the first girl to give him the time of day," he guessed, sounding triumphant. "Oh, what day is this, Rebekah, when we two seem to be the only sane ones around here?"

Klaus scowled.

"There's a beautiful dagger with your name on it, Kol. Just say the word, and you two can be reunited again."

"Enough." Elijah gave a heavy sigh. "There's been enough blood spilt in this town without us adding to it."

He then proceeded to walk out of the room, unsure whether he was hallucinating or not, because even as he walked out of the room, his eyes peeling back to gaze at his small and broken family, he could've sworn that their younger selves stared back at him, nothing but concern written across their faces.

He wasn't quite sure where his feet were taking him, only that they were steering him in an _actual _direction, and ignoring the worried chatter now taking place between his siblings, he pushed on, aware there was only one place he needed to be right now.

….

She plastered the walls with paint, determined to forget, determined to _heal_.

Jeremy had long since given up and gone to bed, but she was still painting away, occasionally pausing to choke back a sob.

When had this all become so _hard_? Moving on had always been a chore, but now it felt like the impossible, something she could only dream about but never attain. This room seemed to accurately depict her state right now, what with it always doomed to be empty, void of life, and perhaps part of her thought that redecorating it might help start the healing process.

So far, it wasn't working.

Elena was tired of burying loved ones, and it didn't matter that Damon had agreed to take care of Alaric's body in the morning, didn't matter that he'd selflessly offered to carry the burden of her grief as well as his own. The fact remained, their number was down by one, and she was tired of struggling on, trying to put a positive spin on everything. Jeremy had been right before he'd left for Denver.

None of them were going to make it out of this town alive.

She was still clad in her 1920s outfit, almost afraid by taking it off it was like accepting the fact the night was over, and that everything that had happened was _real_. With this thought in mind, she kept up her steady pace of brushing, the strokes uneven and administered too roughly.

Eventually, she threw the brush to the ground, dropping to her knees, allowing herself to succumb to the emotion. She buried her head inside her hands, sobbing, unaware of the presence behind her until a soft voice spoke.

"Why are you crying?"

She turned, surprised to see Elijah standing there, his expression unusually tender, less guarded than it normally was. But she felt this suppressed rage sneak to the surface, because it was he and his despicable family which were the cause of all this misery, and she instantly wanted to tell him to leave.

"Why do you think I'm crying?" she demanded, somewhat savagely, making sure to encompass as much bitterness as she could around each word, so he could feel, if only for a moment, the sting that was reality.

It wasn't that she hated Elijah, even after everything he'd done, but knowing what he was a part of her exhausted her ability to try and act like she cared. He was honourable, to an extent, and she valued that commodity, but it wasn't enough to redeem his family in her eyes. Maybe he knew that, and this was a goodbye, or apology, of sorts.

He looked thrown for a moment, but walked towards her, his palms outstretched (an offer of peace) and knelt down beside her, taking her hand in his much to her intense surprise.

"Were the boys in the village a little too rough again?" he murmured, examining her palm.

Elena blinked, confused.

"What are you talking about?"

"I know they don't treat you as they should," he continued, oblivious to her confusion. "I know your past makes you seem easy game to them, but I can assure you, Tatia, you are not alone, and you are certainly not unloved."

"Tatia..." Elena trailed, something clicking into place. "Elijah... It's me. _Elena."_

He gazed at her, the tenderness and warmth in his expression hard to miss, hard to _ignore_, and she stared back at him, suddenly afraid, instinctively knowing something was wrong here – very wrong indeed.

Then she noticed the glazed look in his eyes, the faint sweat beads gathering along his forehead, and began to do what Elena Gilbert did best – worry.

"Elijah." She shook him gently. "Elijah, it's me. Elena. Look at me."

He did, but his smile wasn't his own; that is to say, it wasn't one of a man who was utterly focused, utterly driven by his need to have his family back together again.

"Please don't cry," he soothed, reaching for her cheek, but hesitating. "It upsets me to see you this way. Niklaus feels the same way."

"Elijah." She swallowed, feeling emotion clogging her throat again. "Elijah, please listen. Please. It's me. Elena Gilbert."

Elijah stared at her, confused, and that was the break in character needed to snap him back to reality. Confused, surprised, and shocked, he drew back, rising fluently to his feet, actually looking _skittish_, even though it wasn't part of his personality at all.

"Elena." He swallowed loudly. "I must – I must apologise profusely. I – I didn't intend on startling you." He glanced around. "Or coming here at all, I must say."

She rose cautiously, eyeing him.

"It's okay," she said warily. "What's going on?"

"The strangest thing," he murmured, not quite with her. "I have these intense...headaches, and then I feel like I'm...somewhere else. Here but...not quite."

_He blinked, and there she was again, clad in this beautiful dress – handmade, naturally ,woven by her own two hands– her sobs pushing past every barrier he'd ever put up around people – mostly his father – and he wandered towards her, drawn to her in a way he'd never been drawn to anyone before._

_"Tatia." He knelt beside her, instantly taking her hand. "Why are you crying?"_

_She didn't respond; her face was lost in a sea of curls, hiding the worst of her emotion._

_He glanced at her palms, at the raw marks there, some as red as if they had been bleeding, and felt anger boil inside him._

_"Were the boys in the village a little too rough again?" he asked, angrier than words could've expressed._

_"One cannot expect otherwise, when one has such a slanderous past," she spoke, glancing up at him, her eyes red raw to match her hands. "I gave birth out of wedlock, Elijah – I'm an outcast. A prey to devilish hands which would have their wicked way with me."_

_"I know they don't treat you as they should," he spoke, shaking his head. "I know your past makes you seem easy game to them, but I can assure you, Tatia, you are not alone, and you are certainly not unloved."_

_She gave him a bleary smile._

_"Oh, you are one of the good ones, Elijah. Pure of heart, pure of mind. Yours are the only eyes I see which are free of judgement. I feel so alone in the world sometimes, like there is not a soul who cares about me, not a soul who loves me." She cast a bitter gaze at the ground. "Such is the Petrova curse – to be forever alone."_

_"Please don't cry..."_

"Please don't cry..."

"I'm not." Elena felt herself genuinely concerned for the Original, who seemed to dabble in and out of the past like it was a common occurrence. "Elijah, you need to go home right now."

_Tatia gave him a sweet smile, laden with sadness._

_"You need to go home, Elijah. I shall be fine, I promise. I know a woman who can heal my hands."_

_"Heal your hands maybe, but not your heart, which I see is sick with sorrow," he observed mournfully. "Oh, if you could share my vision of you, Tatia, then perhaps would you see how loved you are." He hesitated. "I know my...brother is fond of you too. Maybe even more than I, for when my brother loves, he loves as he hates – with intensity. Passion."_

_"Yes, Niklaus is nothing, if not intense in his affections." She touched his cheek lightly. "But you are good, right to the heart, Elijah. If only you shared my vision of _you_, perhaps you would not feel the way you do."_

_"Which is...?"_

_"Troubled," she replied simply._

Elena waved a hand in front of Elijah's face, frightened when he didn't respond.

After a few moments, he emerged back into reality, took one look at her pale face and tear soaked cheeks, and exited silently, leaving her to wonder what the hell had just happened.

….

Elijah was back to his usual self as he made his way down the dark streets.

His immediate, and primary, thought was _what the hell just happened?_

He'd frightened Elena, and she'd been buried in her own grief, trying to cope with yet another loss forced upon her young shoulders, and that made another pile of grief rest on his shoulders, weighing him down, each step feeling heavier than it should've done.

Where had all this Tatia business come from? He'd put his feelings about her to rest now, long before Katerina had entered the scene.

What _was _it about the Petrova bloodline which spoke of the forbidden, but promised so much more? What was it about that smile – the smile that revealed everything and nothing – which could make a man go weak at the knees? How had three Petrovas, each looking alike beyond belief, somehow possess three different personalities, and yet could still appeal to any man?

He quickened his pace, turning around quickly, swearing he could hear the sounds of wolves in the night. There was a bright moon hovering in the sky, its glow so fierce, he felt like it was invading him on a personal level.

"Elijah."

_Great. Just all I need. _

"What is it, Niklaus?" he asked promptly, not bothering to stop for his brother.

"You're not breaking down on me are you?" Klaus, unsurprisingly, sounded aggressively critical. "You're not going soft on me because of Elena are you? Because that would be foolish."

"She's an admirable human being, Niklaus, and we've torn her life to pieces," Elijah muttered, avoiding his brother's eyes knowing he would see that innocence again which had once existed in Niklaus, and he couldn't let himself get tied down by the past.

"We're vampires, brother, and Original ones too," Klaus argued hotly, matching him in pace. "If I think for even a second you're capable of betraying me, I'll dagger you, grab Elena, run for the hills and create myself a new hybrid family."

Elijah stopped, turning around, raising an eyebrow.

"This same threat again, brother? See, I think you depend on me, Rebekah and Kol far more than you care to admit. If you truly believed us worthless, you would've grabbed Elena and taken her a long time ago."

"True, but I have had other distractions. Maybe I should amend that."

Elijah smiled humourlessly.

"Father was right in one aspect of his judgement of you – you really are impulsive. You make threats left, right and centre, and yet despite your nature, despite your strength, I've yet to see you act on any of them."

Klaus pushed his lips together in a scowl.

"Is that a challenge?" he demanded sullenly.

"Rest assured, I would rather keep Elena under the watchful eyes of the Salvatores if it's all the same to you. And I'd rather not cart Rebekah and Kol around trying to escape your wrath, not when they finally have some sort of semblance of a home again."

"Ever the hero, Elijah," Klaus sneered. "Always looking out for your family."

"As are you," Elijah reminded him. "In your own twisted way."

As he began to march off, he turned, speculating for the briefest of moments before letting another piece of truth fly from his lips.

"Tatia died believing the worst of us, brother, even after finding the good in us. We senselessly chase down every Petrova for a useless cause, and where does that road always lead? Death. Heartbreak. Vengeance. Rest assured, Niklaus, you can make your threats all you want, but if you carry a single one of them out, you know you'll have sealed your fate forever. You'll be alone. Always and forever."

Klaus opened his mouth, the start of an angry retort bursting from his lips, but Elijah never heard a damn word.

All he became aware of was this intense pain building inside his chest, and then he was in free fall mode, his knees hitting the ground, his head snapping back so that his dark eyes perused the sky.

He vaguely became aware Klaus was yelling his name, but everything became dim after that. All he knew was he needed Niklaus right here, right now; he needed his brother, but not to assist him by any means.

"Niklaus," he managed to get out, grabbing his brother's arm. "I need your help! Tatia is in need of our help."

Klaus stared, for once the arrogance which lived amongst his features nowhere to be seen.

"Elijah..."

_"Niklaus," Elijah swarmed into sight, observing as Klaus tended to a somewhat sullen Rebekah, who plaited and un-plaited her hair as he spoke soothingly to her._

_"What is it, brother?" Niklaus was on his feet at once, concern on his features. "What plagues you?"_

_"Tatia. She's been roughly treated, I fear," Elijah muttered, taking his brother to one side, away from the curious ears of Rebekah. _

_"How so?"_

_"Her hands. They bear raw marks. They look bad. I fear some of the men from our village may be responsible."_

_Niklaus growled under his breath. "The devils. How could they?"_

_"They desire her, Niklaus," Elijah explained hotly. "They desire her, and when she denies them of her, they get violent. We've seen it countless times with some of the other women."_

_"It must be the wolves," Niklaus barked. "They can turn on a full moon into wolves, so who is to say they aren't just as wolfish in their human forms?"_

_"We mustn't jump to conclusions, brother," Elijah cautioned, cooling down somewhat. "We musn't accuse every man with lust filled eyes of hurting her – we'll start a war we cannot hope to win."_

_"Let it start then," Niklaus vowed, visibly riled up. "No one can hurt a woman in this way, Elijah. It isn't right."_

_"What would father say if we were to pursue this needless course of vigilante justice?" Elijah said, giving his brother a meaningful look. "We are not starting a war with the werewolves, Niklaus. It will destroy our whole family."_

_"Maybe a war is what we need to remind them of how strong a family we are," Niklaus stated coldly, already the first threads of what he would become weaving their way into place._

_"I said _no_, Niklaus. We must tend to her, give her shelter, and nothing more," Elijah warned. "It is not for us to avenge her honour."_

_Niklaus smiled coldly, clearly intending to do the exact opposite._

_"Brother, I appreciate your concern for Tatia. But as the one planning to elope with her when the time is right, I think you should leave matters in my hands." He dug his hands into his pockets, looking briefly contemplative. "I wonder if Henrik is up for a little reconnaissance mission tonight."_

_"Don't you dare," Elijah breathed, stepping forward. "It is a full moon. Someone shall be killed if you're not careful. Henrik is just a child."_

_"That as may be, but at least he knows not to stand in my way when I want something," Niklaus spoke, every word wreathed in thinly veiled contempt. "See if father thinks I'm weak now."_

"Elijah?" He felt himself being shaken. "Elijah, stop this."

"Niklaus." Elijah propelled himself forwards, grabbing his brother roughly. "Leave Henrik out of this, I beg of you."

Klaus blinked, completely floundered.

"Henrik?" he spoke, sounding intensely confused. "Elijah... what is wrong with you?"

Elijah didn't even respond, but his eyes, speaking of feelings long past, seemed to reveal that wherever his brother was right now, it certainly wasn't here, right now, in the present.

Then, just as instantly, Elijah's eyes snapped back to Klaus', seemingly confused by the events which had just occurred, dipping his head and closing his eyes as he recounted everything.

"I think..." he began slowly. "I may not be myself right now."

"Undoubtedly so," Klaus remarked, concern warring with confusion as the dominant emotion across his face. "Let's take you home, brother, and get you something to eat. Something, needless to say, a little bit stronger than the diet I'm sure you've become accustomed to eating recently."

Elijah tried to argue, but found he'd been robbed of breath. Instead, he weakly nodded in agreement, allowing his brother to throw an arm around him, steering him around, and back in the direction of their house.

* * *

**A/n: Okay, this is a new idea I'm playing around with. Basically, there won't be much of the Salvatores in this fic, but a little of Klaroline, and definitely a lot of the Originals. Main pairing shall be Elena/Elijah, but it's also Elena/Originals in terms of the fact she's got to band together with them to save him. I'm playing havoc with canon here, so that means playing around with the flashbacks and stuff, which is always fun to do. I have no idea what Tatia is like but in the flashbacks, you'll see she's going to be a lot like Elena but also like Katherine too, so basically her own persona will be a mix of the two. Please review if you like this and if anything doesn't fit with what the show has set in motion, it's most likely deliberate, and so can be classified as AU. Enjoy.**


	2. Honour

Battered Souls

….

~Chapter 2

Honour 

….

Summary: When a mysterious illness strikes Elijah, causing him to confuse Elena with former love Tatia, the whole Original family band together with Elena to try and save his life. Elena/Elijah, with a good dose of the Original family as a side dish ;) A fic that plays havoc with canon – in this story, Alaric didn't complete the transition, so is dead for all intents and purposes (sorry readers) – and is set just after the dance in 3x20.

….

_Tatia had been a new discovery altogether, surpassing by far their discovery of all other things. _

_Being brothers, Niklaus and Elijah had always been closest, never partaking in any activity without the other being present. Their bond was unbreakable, something they cherished and fought to protect, and this was undoubtedly the moment when the first clear obstacle in doing that had presented itself._

_She was new, that much they'd gathered, and her presence had already stirred up some interest in their quiet village. Some were already talking about her beauty, while others, the less understanding, were already passing around the gossip that she'd had a baby out of wedlock, which made her a shameful figure indeed._

_Curious, Niklaus and Elijah had crept forwards, observing her wandering in amongst the trees, occasionally tilting her head upwards, as if addressing the sky, and were already fascinated by her._

_She bore wild, rich curls, which resembled the shade of mahogany in colour. Her cheeks constantly flushed with colour, but though it gave her an innocent quality they couldn't help but be drawn to, there was something else about her which suggested strength was very much part of her personality._

_"What do we think, brother?" Niklaus murmured to Elijah. "She's very...beautiful."_

_"A delightful creature to be sure," Elijah agreed, unable to take his eyes off of her. "Yet she wanders alone, without an escort."_

_"Half the idiots which dwell here are far from worthy of escorting a maiden as fair as her, wouldn't you agree, Elijah?"_

_Elijah gave his brother a hard look._

_"I know what you're thinking, Niklaus. I wouldn't descend upon the poor girl just yet."_

_Niklaus merely gave Elijah a look._

_"Relax, Elijah. You sound like father, talking about me like I'm some devilish creature that preys on the innocent. But I do hope to get to know her more as the days pass."_

_Elijah didn't say anything._

_He couldn't say anything. Trying to talk his brother out of an idea was an absurd a concept as trying to control Kol, who was a wild little thing, and motivated by mischief (created by himself, naturally), but he supposed maybe he needed to cut Niklaus some slack, particularly since it seemed out of all them, their father leaned down the hardest on him, for reasons not quite known._

_But his eyes continued to observe Tatia, who stooped down to touch a few of the flowers growing here. She was such an exquisite beauty, somehow managing to possess the admirable qualities of any woman, yet could hold her head up, looking more determined than any man. _

_He briefly looked at Niklaus, whose eyes were devouring her, and then looked back, for the first time feeling something coming between them._

_It was too early to say for sure, but he could sense his brother was about to get ruthless to get what he wanted. Now Elijah could've done the smart thing and just avoided the whole matter, allowing his brother to get what he wanted._

_But where was the fun – or the logic – in that? Why should Niklaus be indulged just because he could claim everything else in his life – the way his father treated him, the fickle way his siblings were around him, sometimes keen to see him, other times content with ignoring him – was unfair?_

_Elijah had never wanted something so badly before, and since this was a first for him, the wisest course of action to pursue at this given moment was to follow his heart._

_He'd followed everyone else blindly, after all, because that was who he was – content to follow, not to lead._

_And that was all about to change._

Elijah kept thinking about this moment as Klaus steered him back home. He wondered whether that was the very moment he'd seen his brother without the rose tinted glasses on, because even after they'd patched up their differences after Tatia, things had never quite been the same between them.

Distrust is like a disease. Once it festers, it tends to lay there quietly, waiting for its moment to resurface, and he could certainly vouch for the fact that after Tatia, his brother and himself never had quite the same relationship again.

"Finally," Rebekah announced as they walked in, her and Kol waiting anxiously by the door. "I almost had to put a leash on this one," she gestured to Kol, "to stop him going after the pair of you."

"Nice, Rebekah. Thanks for basically implying I possess no self-control." Kol eyed his sister with malicious delight before adding, "Still at least I don't sleep with half the town's inhabitants just to get some attention."

"Something that wouldn't be happening if certain _brothers _of mine stopped being arses."

"Be quiet," Elijah barked, giving Kol and Rebekah equally austere looks. "Might it be too much to ask if you two can refrain from going at each other's throats for just a moment?"

"Besides," Klaus added. "Our dear brother seems to be in need of a drink, so either you two join us at the adult table, or you go out and entertain yourselves for the evening."

Rebekah threw him a sour look.

"Fine," she snapped. "I'll go out. As pathetic as this little town is, it isn't lacking in drama." She gestured to Kol impatiently. "Come, Kol. I see rather than filling us in on what's happened, Nick chooses to treat us like children."

"Is that so?" Kol was by her side instantly. "Well, if that's the way he _treats _us, maybe we should act accordingly."

"Don't be an idiot, Kol. This town - "

"Contains your greatest asset, the doppelgänger, so therefore I should refrain from causing chaos in her town," Kol listed, looking bored. "I got the memo, brother, don't you worry about that."

"Then follow the instructions, before I donate your heart to a museum dedicated to preserving useless things," Klaus hissed, narrowing his eyes.

"I'm hurt by that," Kol called as he walked away, clutching his hand to his chest in a gesture which openly mocked his brother. "Fine – let's see what's on the menu that _isn't _marked 'Property of Niklaus'."

"Might struggle there, Kol, considering how many lives our brother has interfered in, and laid claim to," Rebekah added scathingly, the two of them sharing a laugh as they disappeared.

When they were out of earshot, Klaus strode out of sight, returning briefly with a blood bag.

"Not the nice stuff, but it'll get that cold heart of yours working again," he said stiffly, handing it to Elijah.

Elijah received the gift gratefully, sipping at it delicately before finally wolfing the lot down. It didn't make him feel better, but there was a sort of satisfaction in succumbing to his very nature he found both vindicating and unpleasant at the same time.

"Mind if I ask why you were re-enacting – word for word, I might add – one of our many, _many _moments before we were turned into monsters?" Klaus enquired, his tone inquisitive, but just shy of being demanding.

"I do not know," Elijah confessed, raising a hand to articulate his confusion. "I must admit, I have been feeling rather strange since you told me our mother was dead. I keep experiencing flashbacks to a less...complicated time."

"Our love for Tatia was anything but complicated, Elijah, let's not forget that," Klaus reminded him, pouring himself a drink. "Our history makes the Salvatores look like complete saints."

"Perhaps compared to us, they are," Elijah noted drily, lightly touching his head, noting with some anxiety how the pain drumming inside their seemed to be ongoing, not receding as hoped. "They are admirable you know."

"Please." Klaus snorted derisively. "With Stefan, I see something, but Damon? He's reckless, impulsive, everything -"

"Everything you are, brother," Elijah reminded him. "You butt heads – as some humans so eloquently phrase it – because you essentially share the same traits." He continued drinking the proffered blood, a thoughtful look dawning on his expression. "May I enquire as to why you didn't inform Kol and Rebekah on the situation regarding my health?"

"You know how they react to difficult situations, Elijah," Klaus pointed out derisively. "Kol operates on vengeance mode, and Rebekah will antagonise anyone who even looks at her funny. Thousands of years old they may be, but neither share a particularly mature bone between them. I figured keeping them in the dark about this might benefit us both."

They let the silence simmer between them, both wearing contemplative expressions. Elijah enjoyed moments like this – moments of serenity. Despite Klaus' vulgar temper, there were moments when he could appear cultured, mature, and this was the brother he could tolerate, not the egotistical beast determined to surround himself with hybrids not his own family.

"How's the head?" Klaus asked, giving Elijah a sly glance.

"Still painful," Elijah spoke, his features occasionally giving away the fact he was still feeling a dull ache pulse through his head, and the fact it was constant was the reason it hurt, not the quantity of pain itself, which he found unusual. "I'll survive though."

Klaus nodded, accepting the answer for the moment, turning his eyes upwards.

"I'm glad we were able to reconcile, Elijah. There's nothing more sacred than the bond of family. If the Salvatores could only see that..."

"Why waste your time dwelling on them?" Elijah asked sharply, irritated by Klaus consistently mentioning them. He narrowed his eyes, sensing Klaus' irritating with the Salvatores had a much more selfish theme to it. "You're worried their feuding will fare badly for Elena, and that'll be the end of your hybrid army dream once and for all. Even when you have your family surrounding you once again, you still harbour this nonsensical notion that you need hybrids to make you feel secure." He made a disgusted sound. "What a ridiculous assumption."

"This argument again?" Klaus rose to his feet, shaking his head. "Doesn't hurt to have a back up plan, you know. Alaric might be dead, but there will always be others seeking our demise, Elijah. We will never be completely safe."

Elijah rose to his feet, glaring at his brother, preparing to make a defensive statement in response, but a sharp twinge in his head, on top of the dull ache, stopped him in his track. He faltered, let out a sharp gasp, and then crumbled to the ground.

"Elijah...?"

_"Elijah," Niklaus called, swarming in after first surveying the scene to check their father wasn't anywhere around. "Elijah, where are you brother?"_

Elijah glanced at Klaus, who now looked honest-to-god worried about him, blinking rapidly to try and remember which moment belonged to the past, and which belonged to the present.

"I'm here, brother," he murmured, somewhat giddily.

_"I'm here, brother," Elijah called, finishing cleaning his sword, rising to his feet. _

_"This," his brother ushered in the beautiful woman they'd been observing earlier, "is Tatia. I know you were concerned about us showing too much interest straight away, but would you believe no one has even spoken a word to this fair maiden as of yet?"_

_"Tis true, my lord," Tatia spoke, her voice like silk, innocent blooming from her eyes, from her very smile, which was tinged with shyness. "The men devour me with their eyes, but not a word do they murmur in my direction." She gazed with reverence up at Niklaus, whose pride could not have been clearer. "Your brother here was kind enough to show me around."_

_"This is my beloved brother, Elijah," Niklaus introduced, urging her forwards. "He and I could not help but stumble upon you earlier, if you don't mind me confessing."_

_Elijah bent over, taking her tiny slip of a hand and pressing it softly to his lips._

_"I am most honoured to make your acquaintance, Miss Tatia," he murmured, his eyes aligning with hers, already feeling something stir between his bones that felt too warm to be just simple joviality. _

_Judging by the way her eyes widened fractionally, and the way her breath hitched in her throat, he gathered (or, rather, believed) the feeling was mutual, and a cautious smile lit up his features. _

_As he drew back to his full height, he cast a look at his brother, who hadn't missed the interaction between them, and the tiniest of frowns flickered into view, causing an uneasy feeling to stir inside Elijah's stomach, and that feeling never really occurred much, particularly in the presence of his family – except maybe his father._

_Maybe his earlier apprehension about something coming between himself and his brother had been more accurate than he could've imagine. Rebekah had a skill of reading people, but he possessed this strange ability at being able to predict situations. It wasn't a skill or anything, and he wouldn't have gone as far to suggest he possessed a supernatural ability, but when his gut told him something, nine times out of ten would be absolutely right._

_"I hope to get to be better acquainted with you, Miss Tatia," he said, keeping his eyes locked on Niklaus, trying to gage his reaction._

_"Please." She smiled. "Call me Tatia."_

"Tatia," he murmured, staring up at his ceiling, his eyes glazed, picturing her, bringing up every emotion he'd ever felt around her.

"Elijah..." Klaus roughly shook him. "Elijah!"

But something snapped in Elijah then he couldn't explain even to himself. With a strange amount of strength, even for an Original vampire, he pushed Klaus away from him, rose fluently to his feet, and began to assault his brother, a part of him realising this was wrong, but unable to do anything about it.

He'd researched the effects of a werewolf bite once, noting how the victims seemed to go through some sort of devolution, back to their former selves in another time. He seemed to be going through a similar experience here, although he hadn't recalled ever being quite so violent before. It was like his calm demeanour had been replaced with the demeanour of Klaus', or even Kol's, and he could certainly appreciate why there was this aura of fear about his family.

"Where is she, Niklaus?" he growled, barely flinching as Klaus dodged his blows and returned some of them. "Where is Tatia?"

Klaus paused, neatly catching one of Elijah's fists, his face scrunching up with confusion – and perhaps a little fear.

"She's dead, brother," he spat. "Dead at our hands. Dead because of our shared infatuation for her. Don't you remember?"

Elijah shook his head, every part of him shaking with this uncontrollable rage. He could barely see through the cloud of anger which covered his eyes, but he knew his brother Niklaus had to be lying to him.

_Had _to.

Tatia had breathed life into him where there'd barely been any, and he had to see her again. And Niklaus, like the selfish, arrogant man he was, was hiding her. So he figured he'd have to play dirty to get her.

"I know where she is, Niklaus," he said coldly. "I saw her. You can't play the _she's dead _card to me. I saw her. She was in her house, crying."

Klaus rolled his eyes, but the gesture was redundant, negated by the fact it was obvious by his expression on his face he had absolutely no idea how to handle this situation at all."

"That was Elena, her doppelgänger. Honestly, why would you even - ?"

A series of blows came surging in his direction, most of them making contact with his face. Thrown off guard, Klaus staggered back, and it was clear to see Elijah was going to continue down this violent road until he had proof Tatia wasn't alive.

Klaus hated that they couldn't even celebrate a victory without something going wrong so, like the intelligent man he was, he improvised.

"You want Tatia, brother?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. "Fine. I will bring her to you."

He bit his wrist, making himself bleed, letting the blood pour down into an empty glass before handing it to Elijah, who looked momentarily flabbergasted, the violent outburst temporarily halted.

"This is just in case you have gotten yourself bitten by a werewolf and decided not to share the news," Klaus said grimly. "Drink it."

And without even waiting to see if Elijah had removed the stick up his own ass to obey him, he strode out of the house, hoping he could achieve the seemingly impossible and get Elena to agree to help him.

….

"Absolutely not," Damon growled, both he and Stefan glaring at Klaus, thankful some vampire laws still existed where Klaus was concerned, keeping him firmly on the other side of the door.

"Why? What have I ever done to you?" Klaus asked, openly mocking them. "I'm merely asking for Elena's assistance in this one little matter."

"And what's to stop you from whisking her away forever?" Damon enquired, his eyebrows raised, his arms folded, instantly on defensive mode.

"Nothing," Klaus admitted honestly. "But this is my brother, and unlike the two of you, I place his value above Elena's, so your point is moot."

Damon gave a low hiss, whereas Stefan seemed to just stare at him, his expression just shy of becoming a look of scrutiny.

"Besides," Klaus added, his eyes going back and forth between the brothers. "Since when do you two answer for Elena anyway? Does she not have a voice anymore?"

"We'd rather she not know you're here, you know, considering everything bad that's happened to her is because of you," Stefan spoke, his tone dark. "Now you've said your piece, you can leave."

Klaus gave a chuckle.

"Oh, this is adorable. Now why don't you two put this much effort into defending each other rather than this one human girl, hm? Distrust me all you want, but I'm only here because of Elijah. As I recall, it seems you weren't above asking me for help when your brother needed help, Stefan. Seems only fair you return the favour."

Stefan shook his head, laughing bitterly.

"I cannot believe you're playing that card, Klaus, considering the summer we spent together. Considering all I've done for you. Considering all I _became_ for you. You do not get to play that card at all."

Damon didn't say anything, but the look of pride and approval in his eyes said it all really.

Klaus gritted his teeth, contemplating his options carefully. Now, he could've put this whole problem to bed simply by threatening one of Elena's loved ones – she had no shortage of them after all – but he was tiring of using the same methods time and time again and reaping unsatisfactory results. He'd tried asking nicely too, so maybe he needed to find a balance between nasty and nice that would get the Salvatores paying attention to him.

Before he could say anything, however, he spotted Elena walking towards the door, her expression tentative, her arms folded close to her chest. He could tell she was wary, yet at the same time cautiously interested in what he had to say.

He had to smile.

It seemed Elena's list of people she cared about – whether she admitted it to herself or not – extended to Elijah, and that was what he had to play on here.

"Elena, go upstairs," Damon commanded, not even looking back to confirm it was her standing behind him.

"What's going on?" she enquired, ignoring him.

"Klaus is asking to borrow you for the evening to help Elijah, who, it appears, is not himself," Stefan explained, also refusing to look away from Klaus.

"Why does he need me?" Elena asked, confused, but Klaus could see there was a part of her which had already put the pieces together.

"He believes Tatia to be alive and well, when she, well, isn't," Klaus explained. "Our history with her is a long and brutal one, as I have explained to your keepers here." He gave a sly glance from Damon to Stefan, their poker faces starting to crack at that statement. "Elijah perhaps took her death the hardest, which goes somewhat into explaining why he's become so violent at the idea I've hidden her away from him."

"And why would he believe that?" Stefan asked, genuinely curious despite himself. "What caused him to start hallucinating in the first place"

"Does it matter?" Damon interrupted, looking exasperated. "You've asked us for help, and we've told you we'd rather burn in hell than try and help any of your psycho family members live any longer than they have to. Please let the door hit you on the way out."

Just as he went to slam the door shut, Elena stepped forward, wedging herself between the Salvatores and Klaus, glancing from one to the other, her expression contemplative.

"I'll help," she said, sounding cautious.

"What?" Damon exploded, instantly enraged. "Why?"

She turned her cool gaze onto him.

"Because Elijah found a way of saving me when there wasn't any other way – not that we got to try it out before your impulse took over," she said coldly, and despite his ability to cope with just about anything, Damon flinched at the reminder he'd almost ended her human life himself. "And yes he might've screwed us over, but that doesn't mean he deserves to die like this." She turned her eyes to Klaus. "If I can help him, I will, but if there isn't any other option..."

His cold eyes locked with hers.

"What are you suggesting?"

"I know you're going to use me to try and snap him out of whatever's going on with him," she said squarely. "But if it gets too dangerous - " _like when Damon bit me during his own dark period _- "then I get out. No questions asked." She turned her eyes back to Stefan and Damon. "Fair enough, right?"

"No," Damon said instantly, scowling. "You don't owe them _anything, _Elena. You shouldn't be cleaning up _their _messes."

"This is my decision, Damon. Please respect it," Elena said, her eyes softening as they flickered from Damon to Stefan, and vice versa. "Look, I know I don't owe Elijah anything. But we know from what happened with Rose, and with you, Damon, that a vampire – particularly an Original – suffering from an illness of any kind usually ends in said vampire stumbling around town, not in control enough to not hurt people."

Damon didn't look happy with that explanation at all.

"Ever the martyr, Elena," he muttered irritably. "You're going to fall on your own sword if you're not careful."

She touched his hand gently, as if trying to physically reassure him she would be okay.

"How do you know what he's saying is even the truth?" Stefan piped up, his brow furrowed.

She hesitated, before saying, "Because Elijah came here earlier, and I saw the truth for myself." She turned towards Klaus. "I'm not in the business with making deals with Originals anymore, but I want your word if things get too dangerous, you'll let me go."

Klaus inclined his head.

"A fair enough deal." He grinned briefly. "Wouldn't want anything to happen to my favourite doppelgänger now would we?"

She gave a barely repressed shudder at what he was implying.

"Lead the way," she commanded, giving a last look at Damon and Stefan, who seemed like they were about to follow her.

She slowly shook her head.

_I can do this, _she tried to say with her eyes. _Trust me. _

Damon clearly didn't; Stefan was trying to, but even he seemed to suspect this would not end happily for any of them.

She swallowed loudly.

In reality, she should've let Elijah die, let his whole family rot for all she cared, but a part of her knew there was a chance Elijah was the Original who was responsible for the lives of her friends, and so letting him die was basically condemning her friends to whatever fate they were in store for.

On a personal level, she'd always respected Elijah, always liked that he'd levelled with her one hundred percent. He'd never deceived her, and though his betrayal had stung, she'd understood his reasons behind it. And there was something about the way he looked at her – in a mixture of respect and admiration – that got to her, like he knew and appreciated the very choices she made, because it was built into the humanity that was a part of her.

Okay, maybe she was over-analysing this, as if trying to find a solid reason for why helping Klaus in any shape or form was acceptable, but she found it worked as motivation. She liked the fact that Elijah had always let her make her own decisions, had always let her choice come first.

But at the same time, she knew fully well who he was and what he was a part of.

She could never forget that, no matter how much compassion she showed him. The Originals constant survival just reminded her every day of who had died – and what had been sacrificed – to keep them alive thus far, and if she even dwelt on that for a moment longer than necessary, she knew she'd turn and flee.

She owed it to herself on this one occasion to ignore the truth and believe a lie by believing Elijah was honourable enough to save.

Strictly speaking, that wasn't the lie – it was just a question of whether honour was enough to override everything he'd been a part of, all the chaos he and his family had had a hand in creating.


	3. Company

Battered Souls

….

~Chapter 3

Company

….

Summary: When a mysterious illness strikes Elijah, causing him to confuse Elena with former love Tatia, the whole Original family band together with Elena to try and save his life. Elena/Elijah, with a good dose of the Original family as a side dish ;) A fic that plays havoc with canon – in this story, Alaric didn't complete the transition, so is dead for all intents and purposes (sorry readers) – and is set just after the dance in 3x20.

….

Moments of absolute clarity did tend to crop up every now and then, during which Elijah had time to reflect on his own actions, on the direction his life had taken.

He was far from satisfied, and glancing at his own hands, he realised how many lives had been abruptly stopped by him. Some had deserved it; most were innocents, during his wilder years when he and Niklaus had travelled the world together, relishing their new power as one unit. Those weren't the memories he particularly regretted, because despite the fact he lamented all the actions Klaus made these days, he knew his brother, the one he'd grown up with, was there somewhere, making the occasional appearance as if reminding him that even evil – if that strong a word was even necessary here – has roots leading back to something good, something pure and innocent before that illusion was shattered forever.

He wanted to lie down, but he wasn't that sort of person. He needed to be upright and focused – even during those moments when he was anything but – so he sat cautiously on the couch, his hands folded across his lap, aware utter clarity could be robbed of him within moments, seconds even. Sometimes he'd blink and he'd see the woods again, the smell of the damp earth after a great rainfall still lingering under his nose, the sound of Rebekah laughing after hearing one of Klaus' (exaggerated) stories about something that had happened to him that day still ringing in his ears, as if it was only yesterday.

Elijah was a family man first and foremost. If there was a chance to save his family, he would take it no questions asked, but the one and obvious exception to that rule had been in the form of a woman. A deceiving woman in both mind and spirit, for she'd known how to please both himself and Klaus by weaving a tale which would cut short their questions, both of them arrogantly aware of the affection the other had for this one beauty which walked among them.

He blinked now, swearing he could see Tatia walking gracefully into the room, wearing a bottle green dress, her hair cascading down her back, down her shoulders, but he blinked again, and saw Elena, clad in very different clothes, but compassion still very much present on her face.

He blinked again, and then Tatia reappeared, the expression in her eyes a combination of pity and affection. He let out a violent cough, one which seemed to consume every ounce of him, and then hands were on him at once, protecting and ready to hold him through just about any kind of storm.

"Elijah," he heard Elena, but saw Tatia.

The way to tell the different between the Petrovas lay in their tones. Katerina had always had a husky quality to her voice, which he'd once construed as innocence, but then that opinion had been undermined after she'd turned, and what had once been innocence quickly became something much more sordid and almost cruel. Elena's tone was always compassionate, and always had an orchestra of emotions to every layer of her voice. If she was happy, you heard it, rather than saw it; likewise if she was grieved, the pain and sorrow was audible in her voice.

Tatia had been a different story altogether, her tone sometimes suggesting one thing but meaning another. Perhaps that was how she'd been able to fool both himself and Klaus, and that meant believing there really had been a deceiving side to her, which he consistently refused to believe.

"Elijah," Elena repeated again, kneeling by his side, her hand gripping his. "It's me, Elena."

Elijah blinked, and saw her again. His gaze rose past her to where Klaus stood, his arms folded, his entire weight pressed against the wall, his expression neutral.

"Why did you bring Elena over?" he enquired hoarsely, his eyes widening fractionally at how poor the quality of his voice actually was.

"Because you more or less threatened to annihilate me should I fail to bring Tatia to you despite her being, well, on the dead side of things," Klaus replied. "So I brought the next best thing – Elena."

Elijah swallowed loudly, suddenly hating how vulnerable a position he was in. Elena looked at him, and even though he was battling his own demons, he could see how much pain she was in herself, though for her it was a lot more to do with emotional trauma than physical. Despite the beauty of her doppelgängers, Elena's beauty extended beyond her physical appearance. There was something so noble, so pure about her, and it sometimes stunned him that she even gave him so much as the time of day.

Because he, for all intents and purposes, wasn't as noble as he'd liked to have believed.

"Hey," Elena spoke, her voice soothing. "I - "

"I am aware you are the last person you want to see right now, Elena," he interrupted, pausing to give another violent cough. "I would like to apologise for what I put you through the last time we met - "

"I understand your reasons," Elena told him, but he noticed she wasn't telling him she'd forgiven him, and he could understand why.

"No." He gave her a bleary look. "Trying to preserve our lives over the lives of you and your friends was stupid."

"But necessary," Klaus chimed in, through gritted teeth as though annoyed at his brother showing a vulnerable side that just didn't match up to the fierce and frightening façade they were supposed to give off as a unit, as a family.

Elijah closed his eyes for a moment, swallowing loudly, the sound of Elena's heartbeat thrumming in his ears. His eyes snapped open, and there she was, looking as ravishing as he remembered.

_Tatia. _

"Elijah..."

_"Elijah," she spoke, her voice tender as she entwined her fingers with his. "You know I cherish our time together, but what if - ?"_

_"If Niklaus should find out?" he finished for her. "Then let him. Maybe it would teach him some manners by showing him not everything he snaps his fingers at will respond to him."_

_She pressed a hand to her lips, repressing laughter. It still showed in her eyes, however, giving them an intense glow which hadn't been present before. _

_He smiled warmly at her, taking her hand and pressing it against his cheek, as if making sure she was really there, beside him._

Elena looked helplessly at Klaus, as a clearly dazed Elijah took her hand and pressed it against his cheek. She could feel the sweat pouring down his face, but she knew denying him the contact could be catastrophic, and even Klaus seemed to be on tenterhooks trying to gage what his brother would or wouldn't do in this state.

"Tell me about yourself," Elijah murmured. "Give me something real. Anything."

_"Well," Tatia began, contemplating the question, keeping her fingers interlocked with his. "My child, when she was born, was born under the stars, under a bright, beautiful moon."_

Elena swallowed nervously, searching for something she could offer Elijah which would suffice as 'real'.

"Well," she began cautiously. "My parents named me Elena because they'd been trying to have a baby for a long time. When I arrived – literally, on their doorstep – they told me it was like seeing a light shining in the dark, like seeing hope before their eyes, and they knew they had to name me after that feeling, because no matter what I grew up to be, that's what they knew I'd always be to them – light."

_"Really?" he smiled, absorbing every part of her as she told her story, noting the way her eyes would light up at the mention of something so special to her, the way her entire body would just tense that little bit, which signalled she was telling a story here without a happy ending. _

_"I wanted to call her Luna," Tatia remarked, her eyes glazed. "Because like the moon in the sky, she was my light in a very dark period of my life." Her smile faded. "I never even held my baby. She was taken away, and though I got to stay with my parents, it was never the same. They knew what I was, what I had done to them by having a baby out of wedlock, and I left before I was pushed away."_

"And even after I learned I wasn't their biological child, it didn't seem to make a difference somehow. Because even thought they were gone, and I wasn't, I still liked to think I made them as happy as they made me, that we were each other's strength, you know? So, I can understand why you wanted to protect your family, Elijah. Even though mine's gone – mostly, since I still have Jeremy – there's nothing I wouldn't do for them, nothing I wouldn't do to protect their memory."

_"I completely admire you," he spoke softly. "You possess such strength, such...light." He gazed at her with undisguised reverence. "I wish everyone could see it."_

Elijah was aware he was saying these words to the past version of Tatia but, on another level entirely, he knew he was directing them to Elena. He could feel her presence, even though his mind was telling him a different story entirely, painting him a pretty picture of an entirely different moment of his life.

It wasn't quite the Jekyll/Hyde experience, but it did feel quite weird having two conflicting versions of himself conversing with essentially the same girl, just in two completely different time periods.

As one, both Tatia and Elena seemed to thank him, and that was when he felt himself sliding out of both worlds, the darkness engulfing him, making him feel like he was falling into essentially nothing.

"Elijah!" Elena shook him roughly. "Elijah?"

She felt herself being pushed out of the way as Klaus strode over to examine his brother, his hands reaching out to lift him up, his eyes perusing him cautiously, a pregnant pause stifling any words which may have passed between them.

"He's not dead," Klaus eventually announced, dropping his brother back on the couch. "Just passed out."

She nodded, feeling numb, not even sure why there was a part of her that even cared. She shouldn't of cared. Elijah was part of the Original family, would never be completely dependable to do the right thing by her, and why should she expect him to be? His family came first, and hers came first to her, but the problem was that their families and friends were locked in this battle, and the only way to end it was for one side to bow out.

She felt worn out trying to even figure out who had inflicted what on whom. It was just all one big mess, and the worst part of it was that she couldn't really condemn any of the Originals – apart from Klaus; always apart from Klaus – for what they had to do to protect their loved ones. She'd done some pretty twisted stuff to protect her own, after all.

"You shouldn't blame yourself. Elijah seems to be delusional right about now," Klaus spoke, not particularly tender with his words, but certainly not his usual brutish self. "I imagine it's probably double the work trying to work out who he's even talking to."

"Why is he like this?" Elena asked, looking up at him, finally addressing the million dollar question. "Did he get bitten by a werewolf?"

"Was my first thought, but he had my blood, and it didn't seem to make a bloody bit of difference," Klaus remarked, sounding somewhat disheartened. "I would go to the witches for help, but let's face it, they aren't going to do anything to help us live longer, and I suspect it's witches that are behind this so -"

"He's going to die, isn't he?" Elena asked, her voice flat even to her own ears.

"Presumably," Klaus said, collapsing on the sofa opposite his brother, looking exhausted, if he could even work that look at all.

She didn't respond at first; she averted her gaze, for once grateful Klaus seemed to keep his attention on his brother, rather than her. At the same time, she couldn't help feeling like nature was punishing the wrong Original here, but she wasn't really going to go down that road of figuring out who in her life had accepted the punishment others should've suffered in their stead; it would've been a very long list.

"What are you going to do?" she asked, curiosity driving her, even in the midst of her own grief for Alaric.

"That's the catch isn't it? I haven't a bloody clue," Klaus muttered, not even really paying any attention to her question.

When he finally met her eyes, something passed between them, and it kind of freaked her out that it did, considering who he was and what he would always need from her.

Understanding.

Elena understood he was willing to do anything to keep his brother alive – which said something for Klaus' supposed lost humanity – and, in return, he understood she'd been where he was before, desperate to save her own family, yet unable to do a damn thing to protect them.

It was surreal seeing that desperation on Klaus' face when, ironically, he'd been the cause of sheer desperation being _branded _on her skin for all to see. It was extremely hard for her to find even the remnants of pity to offer, and yet, somehow, because of who she was, she found pity somewhere inside her...but kept it hidden from view.

The last thing she wanted to do was give the illusion she cared more fuel to burn with, and yet here she was, stuck between one man who was noble and almost _good, _and a beast whose only redeeming quality – and even that was a stretch – was the fact he was here right now, watching over his brother, concern flooding his eyes, the illusion of not caring banished at once.

Family was family; whether you were an Original vampire or otherwise, it meant the same thing: you protected it with every goddamn bit of strength and energy you were equipped with.

….

She found herself still sitting beside Elijah as the hours rolled past, not quite sure why she was even here.

Her phone had buzzed violently several times, and a few occasions had passed where she'd glanced at the progressively worried text messages she was receiving from both Damon and Stefan, but for some reason, here, she felt oddly at peace, watching over a man who had no business being on the outskirts of her heart like this.

Klaus had gone out for the moment, somehow trusting her to watch over his brother, which she'd found incredulous until she realised if anything happened to Elijah, he knew she knew he'd hold her responsible, and she knew perfectly well what a vengeful Klaus looked like, not to mention knew the lengths he was willing to go to for revenge to be achieved. Her loved ones would suffer, and it was yet another reason she knew she had to stay.

Sometimes she wondered if Damon was right and she was always doomed to be the martyr. She'd had her share of selfish moments – that kiss with Damon in Denver was a prime example of that – but she knew she'd given her heart to so many people, and that meant worrying over their lives every moment of every day, which, in a sense, was the price she paid for any and every selfish moment she seized.

Elijah stirred, catching her attention. She watched as his eyes burst open, his pupils veering wildly around, before slowly closing again.

She remembered how terrifying it was to be around Damon when he'd been ill, how his usual self-restraint around her had just crumbled just because his violent past with Katherine had replayed itself in his own mind. She wondered whether Klaus and Elijah's shared history with Tatia was just as violent as Stefan and Damon's history with Katherine had been. Had it ended the same, or with more bloodshed?

"What are _you _doing here?" came an indignant voice, and Elena whipped her head around at once, to find both Kol and Rebekah staring at her, flickers of fury on both their faces.

"More importantly, what's happened to Elijah?" Kol demanded, stepping forward.

"He's passed out," Elena explained, but found Rebekah had blurred in front of her at once, grabbing her neck, the motion so sudden and violent, she found herself being pulled to her feet.

"A likely story," Rebekah sneered, the first traces of hysteria entering her voice, making it clear to Elena that despite the fierce façade, Rebekah was completely terrified at the thought of something happening to her brother.

Kol, meanwhile, was by Elijah, prodding him curiously.

"He looks out for the count, sister," he observed, sounding concerned. "If he wasn't already dead, I'd say he was close to death."

Rebekah released Elena, giving her a light shove, the look of contempt in her eyes giving way for worry for her brother. She strode over to where Kol stood, the two of them peering at their unconscious brother, their hands entwining briefly for reassurance purposes, which Elena had to smile faintly at, once again marvelling at how strong the bond was between the siblings, despite everything that had happened to them.

"What do you think the matter is?" Kol was saying. "He seemed completely unfocused earlier, completely oblivious to even _me."_

"Witchcraft, I'll be bound," Rebekah muttered, briefly turning to stare at Elena. "Why are you still here? Haven't you more lives to ruin with your presence?"

The insult barely stung; Elena had learned to deflect any insulting remark Rebekah threw at her. She hovered uncertainly, not sure whether to stay or go. She felt like this wasn't her moment to intrude on, but at the same time, she wasn't sure whether leaving would do any good. Elijah was clearly hovering between two different times, and maybe her presence, somehow, gave him some peace of mind.

She shuffled awkwardly on the spot, making up her mind to leave. As she turned, however, Kol automatically blocked her, his expression inquisitive more than hostile, which she found strangely more disturbing.

"Since you're here, you might as well prove yourself useful and provide us with dinner," he said, grinning as though he'd told an amusing joke, cracking his knuckles, as though preparing to physically restrain her, and she took a step back, her breath hitching in her throat.

"Touch her, and I'll make sure you end up back in that coffin, shipped off to some far away country where you can't kill an atmosphere with your idiotic behaviour," Klaus threatened, appearing from nowhere, bearing a hostile expression. "I thought you two were out?"

"We were, but got bored," Rebekah supplied listlessly. "There's bugger all to do here, Nick."

"My heart bleeds for you," Klaus sneered, unmoved by her complaint.

"I wasn't aware you still possessed one, dear brother," Kol piped up, sticking up for his sister. "There's no evidence to suggest otherwise, you know."

"You'll be missing _yours _if you're not careful, Kol," Klaus growled in response. "That arrogant attitude of yours will get you naught but a - "

"Ooh wait! I know this one." Kol pretended to think for a moment. "It'll get me a dagger in my heart. Is that it, or was that too obvious an answer?"

"Shall I just - ?" Elena asked lamely, gesturing towards the door, her eyes flicking to each Original in turn, wondering whether her unfinished question would provoke a violent response out of any of them.

"Don't," croaked a hoarse Elijah, who stirred, his eyes taking in the entire room.

Instantly, Rebekah swooped on him, clutching her hand in his.

"Elijah, what's wrong?" she begged. "And don't try and say you're fine. You look like a ghost."

A ghost of a smile haunted his lips.

"I was going to say I felt a tad..._dead_, but it's rather a redundant statement, don't you think?"

"How do you feel?" Klaus asked, trying (and failing) to sound indifferent.

"Like death," Elijah re-iterated. "I keep going backwards and forwards in time. It's rather inconvenient."

"Wait – _what?_" Kol piped up, instantly confused.

"Oh, you missed the fun moment when Elijah re-enacted some of our happier moments together," Klaus responded, his voice heavily sarcastic. "It was quite delightful recapping where everything seemed to go wrong for us, wasn't it, brother?"

Elena again tried to head out, but Kol was in front of her again, pushing her lightly towards Elijah.

"If my brother wants you to stay, it would be wise to indulge him," he warned her lightly, eyeing her in a way she felt completely uncomfortable with. "He is on his sickbed after all."

Elijah gave a barely repressed sigh.

"Quit tormenting the poor girl, Kol. She's here to help."

"I don't see how I - " Elena began, sounding helpless, but feeling exhausted, like she just wanted to go home and collapse.

He turned his eyes to her, gesturing her to come closer. She returned to her spot, which consisted of her kneeling beside him. His expression was almost tender, certainly affectionate, and he gave her a small smile.

"I'm sorry if my behaviour is frightening you, Elena. I believe this is nature punishing me somehow for the part I have played in bringing great evil into your life."

Rebekah made a loud noise of disbelief.

"Don't apologise to _her, _Elijah. She's hardly as innocent as you make her out to be."

"Mind your tone," Elijah said sharply. "As I recall, you have blood on your hands, yet Elena doesn't. If this is a discussion about virtue, kindly do me the favour of holding back the judgement, for if we put you under the microscope, I dare say we'd all be shocked by what we'd discover."

"I wouldn't," Kol put in slyly. "Ever the temptress is my dear sister."

Rebekah scowled.

"Fine," she said through gritted teeth. "I see my opinion is about as valuable as it's ever been to you people, so I think I might retire for the night."

And with that, she turned on her heel and stalked out, Kol whistling under his breath, grinning as though he found everything to be an amusing joke of some kind.

"Ignore Rebekah," Kol directed this towards Elena. "She has about seventeen tantrums a day over such petty things, and we've all been a target for her rage at least a dozen times, so don't let her venomous attitude bother you."

"I'll try not to," Elena replied faintly, closing her eyes for a moment, allowing a moment of weakness to break her concentration for half a second before she opened them again, her calm demeanour back in place.

"Niklaus, will you escort Miss Elena back home?" Elijah requested, his tone giving away the fact this was an order not a suggestion. "I dare say we have wasted enough of her time tonight."

"Kol can do it," Klaus replied, gesturing lazily. "Or she can escort herself home. Why does it even matter? You're our primary focus right now, Elijah."

"If I wanted Elena to return home in less than the perfect state she is now, I would've asked Kol to escort her back," Elijah countered. "As such, I'm leaving the task to you, Niklaus, for God knows you won't let her be harmed on your watch."

"I don't know why everyone believes me to be so reckless," Kol complained, in a tone which suggested he wasn't really fussed about the accusation. "But I shall leave you two to fight over the doppelgänger's fate as I have, frankly, better ways of wasting my time."

And he too stalked out, leaving Klaus and Elijah to stare at each other, wariness reflected in both sets of eyes.

"Fine." Klaus exhaled, backing down much to Elena's surprise. "But I suggest not bringing her back around here again, not with Kol constantly on the lookout for dinner, and Rebekah holding a permanent grudge just because she was robbed of a dance." His lip curled into his trademark sneer. "Not to mention I fear some of Elena's martyr ways are rubbing off on you, brother."

Elijah chuckled dryly, but closed his eyes and was shortly motionless. Klaus paused, his instincts driving him to help his brother, yet at the same time aware he had another obligation to fulfil.

Elena stood there, feeling any action she could've taken was futile, so began to walk out of the house, the night air slapping her cheeks, tugging at her hair, bringing life to the illusion that she really was falling apart.

She felt Klaus' presence before she saw him, but avoided looking at him. Nothing had changed in terms of their relationship, but now she'd seen a side to him which she'd not known about, it was hard to view him in a completely negative way.

Not completely hard, mind you, but difficult enough.

"What will seeing me have done, do you think?" she asked quietly, not really expecting an answer.

"Nothing, I expect," Klaus remarked heavily. "I mostly brought you around to stop him annihilating me."

_Which is the motive for all the things you ever do, _she couldn't help but think sourly.

"He might get worse."

"I know. And I have to be prepared to put him out of his misery." Was she imagining the flicker of pain to Klaus' voice, or was it really there? "But until it gets to that point, I have to find a way of saving him."

"Why? You've not exactly advocated the fact you're a family man, considering all you've ever done to your family is dagger them and cart them around in coffins for centuries?"

Klaus smiled humourlessly.

"There was always method in the madness, Elena. I may have daggered them and kept them in coffins, but nonetheless they remain in the same state as they were when I last saw them. Can you honestly say while pursuing the same course as I have that all _your _family – blood related, or otherwise – remain physically unaltered by your experiences so far?"

Elena didn't answer, but her hate filled glance in Klaus' direction answered his question, which explained the tiny smirk which crossed his lips.

Apparently he was the kind of man who could, in one breath, show her the caring element of a man devoted to helping his family, while in an other be arrogant enough to refer to events both before and ever his reign of terror had begun in Mystic Falls, thus implying he was better at protecting his family than she was at protecting hers which, to an extent, she could see.

His methods still sucked though.

* * *

**A/n:** **Big thank you to everyone who has reviewed thus far. Been overwhelmed with the response. Now Tatia and Katherine share a similar past, as I'm sure this chapter highlights, but as the flashbacks become more and more entwined in the present, you'll see she shares a lot in common with Elena too, and though there's been no Klaroline thus far, there will be a smidgen of them next chapter, but whether they directly interact or not, I will let you guess. Keep reviewing and I'll try and update faster. There will be an Elijah/Elena romance developing BUT due to what's going on in the show at the moment, it won't be for a while, but just hold on, good things come to those that wait ;)**


	4. Souls

Battered Souls

….

~Chapter 4

Souls

….

Summary: When a mysterious illness strikes Elijah, causing him to confuse Elena with former love Tatia, the whole Original family band together with Elena to try and save his life. Elena/Elijah, with a good dose of the Original family as a side dish ;) A fic that plays havoc with canon – in this story, Alaric didn't complete the transition, so is dead for all intents and purposes (sorry readers) – and is set just after the dance in 3x20.

….

It figured the moment Elena walked through the door, Damon and Stefan immediately pounced on her, firing question after question in her direction, something she'd expected but not prepared herself for.

"Are you okay?"

"What happened? Did they hurt you?"

"What's going on with Elijah?"

She raised a weary hand, her heart akin to a fist in that it was clenched from the numerous façades she'd had to put on tonight. She could've given Damon and Stefan the long winded explanation, but, honestly, they just didn't look in the mood to understand anything she said, plus she was exhausted and drained, so preferred to use as few words as possible to get the overall gist across.

"He's sick," she informed them. "I – I don't know what's actually wrong with him. He looks at me, and sees Tatia."

Damon and Stefan simultaneously frowned.

"Tatia as in - ?"

"As in his former love, Tatia, yes," Elena filled in, remembering how they'd filled her in on the mysterious identity of the girl whose face she and Katherine wore. "The girl he and Klaus fought over." _Not unlike you and Stefan, _she silently added, although saying that particular thought aloud was just asking for trouble.

"Super." Damon rolled his eyes. "The _only_ Original even _close_ to being somewhat sane is now a loose cannon. As if we haven't got _enough _on our plates right now!"

Elena scowled, realising Damon would of course see the situation as being a huge disadvantage. He wouldn't see it from any other point of view, being stuck in his one track mind, and she couldn't entirely blame him for the way he was. The Originals had tormented them all at one point or another, so why she was slowly adjusting her attitude towards them struck her as completely odd.

Then again, she'd always admired that noble streak in Elijah, that sense of wrong and right being as clear as black and white. The way he'd lived his life was questionably immoral, but she could certainly understand his point of view, and, to an extent, why he'd followed Klaus blindly for centuries, and it went beyond just brotherhood. She knew a part of him had felt lost after Tatia's demise (at least, that's how she assumed the story had ended), and so, putting aside all differences between himself and Klaus, he'd reignited their bond just to cling onto something.

She knew the feeling.

After her parents had died, she'd felt so numb that life had just felt like this separate entity, something she could only look at from a distance, not be a part of as she had before. When Stefan had sprung into her life, ironic as it seemed, the warmth and life which clung to him she'd automatically gravitated towards, because he'd been safe, inadvertently teaching her how to live again.

The drama he'd brought along with him hadn't really mattered in the grand scheme of things because at least it had all made her feel something again.

Pain and hurt, in the long run, were ways of reminding her she was alive, even if the life she was living was riddled with supernatural beings who on a day to day basis caused her various degrees of pain and misery, as well as providing her with moments of absolute joy and pleasure incomparable to anything else she'd ever experienced.

"So I'm assuming your little role in the Desperate Original Housewives saga is over?" Damon questioned, his tone flat. "What did you say to convince Elijah he wasn't staring at one of the ghosts of girlfriends past?"

"He has moments of clarity," she defended, pushing past Damon to pour herself some water just to wet her suddenly dry throat. "But every now and then he'll slip into the past and that's when..." she swallowed, inexplicably nervous all of a sudden, "that's when we lose him. I couldn't really say much to convince him I wasn't Tatia." She raised her eyes so they were level with Damon's. "It reminded me of when you'd been bitten and ended up staggering around the square, looking for me, but thinking about Katherine."

"You had to bring that up again didn't you?" he retorted, grimacing at the memory. "I hope you make no plans on visiting Elijah again, Elena, because if _I_, the master of self-control, hurt you while revisiting such _pleasant_ memories of the past," his tone became bitter and sarcastic, at this point, signalling his belligerence was flaring up again, "then Saint Elijah is hardly going to fare any better,_ and_ he's stronger than me, so mark my words, it's better to stay away."

"But I didn't really do anything to help," Elena found herself protesting, unsure where this sudden need to defend Elijah came from.

"Too bad. You tried. Can't really do much more than that."

"Damon - " she immediately snapped, another defensive retort at the ready.

"Look, why don't we all get some rest," Stefan suggested, ever the peace maker. "Elena, I'm sure you want to sleep right now, so we'll just leave you to it."

He motioned towards Damon, who gave a last exasperated sigh before turning on his heels and striding past his brother and out of the house, leaving just the two of them standing awkwardly together, the reminder of what had been still flaring strongly between them like an open flame. Their eyes met, and Elena for one moment forgot everything that had broken them – both individually and as a unit – because looking at him right now was like looking at the Stefan who'd made her feel alive again. She knew differently, of course, and things would never quite be the same between them again, but just remembering that for the briefest of moments gave her the moment of respite she needed.

"Thanks for getting him out of here," she said gratefully. "I appreciate he's looking out for me, but to make my own decisions for me - "

"That's just Damon's way of making sure you're okay," Stefan said gently. "I'm not saying it's the right way to do so, but I can't deny it's kept you alive so far. Plus I'm with him on the point that if Elijah is unstable, he's not safe to be around."

"I know," she said, nodding. "I get that, Stefan, I really do. I just - " She bit her lip, averting her eyes, unable to really articulate what it was she was trying to say. "I don't know why I want to help him, Stefan. He betrayed us, made me a hostage... and yet despite all that, I see something good in him. He's about family above all else and I respect that."

Stefan nodded, but she could see in his eyes he wasn't really convinced by her argument. She ran a weary hand through her hair, signalling the end of the conversation, and, like she did at the end of every day, no matter how painful it'd been to experience, she presented a smile, even though it felt so false, even to herself.

He smiled back, but his smile told her he knew hers was false, because he always had known her so well. She'd both loved and hated that about him.

"Goodnight, Stefan," she murmured, lowering her eyes, aware there were things unspoken between them, lies they'd told themselves to help heal the hurt, and they'd deal with them as and when they can but, for now, she needed some rest.

"Goodnight, Elena," he responded in kind, disappearing into the night, leaving her standing there, wondering what the hell she'd gotten herself into this time.

….

It was akin to the flu, what he was feeling. He experienced hot and cold flushes, sometimes his body jerking upwards, a sharp gasp escaping his lips, like his very soul was trying to leap from his body; other times, it felt like sharp knives were stabbing him all over his body.

Rebekah and Kol took turns watching him, their concern for him warring over their desire to do something other than just sit around waiting for the worst to happen. Being restless, they weren't content to just sit and watch the suffering of their brother, but without knowing what to do, they couldn't really do much else. Klaus drifted in and out, his expression contemplative, the occasional thoughtful grunt escaping his lips before a dismissive shake of the head put to rest the very idea he'd obviously been musing over.

After the seventeenth time of watching him do this, Elijah finally spoke up.

"What foolish notion are you wrestling over now, Klaus?"

"Never you mind," Klaus retorted, pausing to stare into the fire, his eyes darker than Elijah had ever seen them.

"Get some blood down you," Elijah advised, his voice croakier than he'd have liked it to have been. "You're no use half-starved."

"Come, brother. Let's paint the town red," Kol piped up, a wicked grin spreading across his lips. "_Blood _red, that is."

"You possess as much wit as a lowly stick insect, Kol," Klaus retorted, unamused at the pun. "I wouldn't pursue a career in comedy if I were you."

"I'd rather sit around and watch things fossilise than go out with you, brother, seeing how your mood right now is set to _buzz kill _but, you never know, it might be fun to head into town together. Might run into that perky Blonde again. I did enjoy watching your eyes pop out of their sockets as she approached the bar..."

"Are you aware of limits, Kol?" Klaus raised his eyebrows questioningly. "No? Well, you've reached yours. Go entertain yourself."

"We all know what happens when Kol entertains himself, brother," Elijah reminded them, coughing loudly, leaning over the couch, retching, his hand flying towards his mouth. "Wars start."

Kol grinned, but the concern in his eyes diminished the playful look.

"It was only one, I'll have you know, and it was just two neighbouring countries which, quite frankly, needed some good old fashioned violence just to make them even vaguely interesting."

Klaus ignored this last comment, leaning against the wall, his arms folded.

"We need to get the witch to help. I'm tired of listening to this," he said aloud, gesturing angrily in the direction of Elijah.

"Hate to break it to you, but the Bennett witch is hardly likely to help you is she?" Kol pointed out, for once not a trace of sarcasm to be heard. "I mean, you have sort of invaded hers and her friends' lives."

"I know," Klaus snapped. "I don't need to hear my own history, thank you very much. She just needs the right motivation to help."

He turned towards Elijah, who had gone still, his face chalk white in colour. Panic gripped him for the briefest of moments, before he let indifference colour his expression. In reality, he'd made a pledge not to care for the family who repeatedly rejected him, but the humanity he continued to deny the existence of made sure he still cared, even if it was just for brief moments.

What he didn't know about, truthfully, scared him. Lack of knowledge regarding a subject usually left you at a disadvantage, and that was the worst position to be in. He'd spent centuries gaining the upper hand in every situation possible, making sure to be one step ahead in whatever venture he pursued, and his continued survival was proof that his methods, though lacking in finesse, certainly worked.

"What you thinking about?" came Kol's voice. "Kidnap? Murder?" He grinned. "I'm good with both."

"I know you are, hence why your lungs are still on the _inside _of your body, as opposed to the outside where they will surely end up unless you stop grinning like a hyena," Klaus muttered, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Where's our lovely sister ended up anyway?"

"I imagine she's gone frolicking in the undergarments of some poor young man somewhere," Kol replied airily. "You know how she can be."

Klaus grimaced. "You really are a picture of sensitivity aren't you?"

"Just keeping the humour going. This place – no offence, Lijh – is gloomier than a graveyard."

Klaus gave another grimace but didn't comment.

"If you want to prove yourself useful, go get me the witch."

"Now?" Kol looked genuinely confused. "Since when am I your errand boy?"

"Since you're bored and have nothing better to do," Klaus suggested, smiling a sickeningly sweet smile. "Or have the complaints I've been listening to for hours upon end simply the delusions of a _much_ more superior mind forced to endure the smutty one of his own brother?"

Kol shook his head, smirking.

"You really can be so pretentious sometimes, Niklaus. It's no wonder Tatia - "

Klaus snapped his head to one side, reaching out a hand and grabbing Kol's neck before swinging him around, pushing him violently against the wall, fury gathering up in his eyes.

"Do not speak her name unless you have a death wish," he snapped.

"What? Elijah can get away with it and I can't?" Kol stared at his brother, unsmiling. "Come on, Klaus. We both know it still eats you alive what happened to her. Before that blonde bombshell tiptoed onto your radar, she was the only woman you ever loved. You think the rest of us like having that harlot haunting our every damn step because of what she nearly did to our family?"

Klaus didn't respond at first, but it was clear Kol's words had affected him. A broody expression settled into place, ageing him slightly, and it was the first indication of regret which had crossed his features in a long, long time.

"You know it was father that suggested we use her blood to turn us into vampires?" he said quietly, bitterly. "He knew the way I felt about her because I was stupid enough to believe he would let me have her at least, even if he wouldn't let me have anything else good in my life. I feared him up until that point, but after I learned the truth, I soon came to see him for what he truly was – a despicable monster. He believed me to be no better than something he'd find under his shoe, so I think it was only appropriate I informed him of a few home truths before I murdered him."

Kol regarded his brother solemnly, aware of a dull ache inside him for the way things had been between them all. He didn't miss his father at all, and that was the honest truth, but somehow he didn't trust Klaus any better. Unlike Rebekah, who was content to believe the best of her brothers as well as the worst, he could see traces of their father in Klaus, despite the fact they weren't blood related, but to tell Klaus that was basically asking to get his heart ripped out, so he kept his astute observations to himself.

An awkward silence had settled between them following Klaus' bitter outburst. After a moment, however, Klaus turned to Kol, narrowing his eyes determinedly as a sudden thought came to him.

"We wait until morning, then, if nothing changes, we get the witch. Agreed?"

Kol nodded.

"But until then, who's going to watch him?"

"I suspect our dear sweet Rebekah won't be home until morning, so it falls down to you and me," Klaus said, with a sigh. "I'm heading out for a couple of hours, so you can take the first watch."

"Why me?" Kol protested, his hands clenching into fists, instantly prepared to argue vehemently against any point his brother made for him to stay.

"Because you have this habit of starting fights you cannot finish," Klaus sneered. "You talk a big game, Kol, but at the end of the day, you're not much different than when you were a child, except maybe you might've possessed more maturity then than you do now."

Kol merely rolled his eyes in response, flopping down on the couch and staring moodily ahead, muttering the odd obscenity under his breath. Despite his obvious loyalty to his brother, Kol had never been one for sitting around and waiting. He was always happiest going out and getting even to whichever poor miscreant had offended him that day, so in one respect, Klaus could sympathise with his brother, having also the nature of an impatient and reckless steed bursting for adventure, never content to just reside in the stable with all the other small town ponies.

Despite the grimness of the situation, Klaus couldn't help but smile as he strode out of the room, hearing his brother continue to mutter under his breath.

Some things never changed.

….

In between his dreams, dreams where he was with her again, memories interspersed with the flashes of the past, and it became increasingly difficult to work out which was which.

On no occasion, for example, did Elijah remember lowering his face towards Tatia's neck, the warmth of her body and that distinct scent associated only with humans assuring him of her humanity, nor did he remember her every being clad in such...strange clothes, so that must've been a memory associated with Katerina.

Or was it Elena?

Having felt something for each of the three Petrova women, Elijah was beginning to sympathise with the Salvatores in a way he hadn't been able to before. Each had possessed a unique quality which had drawn him, whether that had been Tatia's beauty, Katerina's free spirit, or Elena's nobility and loyalty to her friends and family. They shared traits, as well as similar features, but when he wasn't struck down by this ridiculous excuse for an illness – which, technically, he shouldn't have been experiencing, given what he was – he felt like he could've had all three of them in front of them, and without hesitating could've identified them.

Now?

Now he was lucky if he could even remember their individual names. Tatia had been his first love, the woman he was tied to emotionally, in a way that surpassed any other kind of bond, but she'd also almost destroyed his family, what with the reckless way she'd gone from him to Klaus without batting an eyelid.

He'd put up with it...to an extent. In fact, it had added a little excitement to his life, keeping their affair a secret. It made each touch, each kiss, each glance that much more dangerous, like one wrong move could have everything they'd built together swept from under their feet.

_"Where are we going?"_

He was remembering in this particular moment the day his family had visited a neighbouring village for supplies, and he'd feigned an illness just so he could see Tatia again. She'd loved the thrill of it all, proclaiming that she'd loved his free spirit, how he would defy his own brother for her.

That was the warning sign there, which should've told him she wasn't worth it, but he hadn't listened. It was partly why he despised (most) humans; they always listened to their hearts, never their heads, which was why most of them ended up in such contemptible situations, and they had no one to blame but themselves.

_"Somewhere special," she called, her hair flowing down her back, laughing wildly. "Why? Are you under the assumption I'm leading you down a dark and wicked path?"_

_He paused for breath, grinning, his eyes alight with an intense glow only she could bring out._

_"Perhaps. Yet I am heading down it all the same."_

His eyelids flickered at that point, opening weakly, vaguely aware he was somewhere else, but all he could see was the canopy of the trees, and the smell of the pine and the morning dew just felt so...vivid. He could see the old oak he and Kol would climb, often jumping just before the point where it became too high to do so, inventing a game out of it which would occupy them for hours upon end. He could taste the freedom, his lips even now trembling ever so slightly at how new it all felt, though it was a feeling he'd long since forgotten about because, to be brutally honest with himself, when you were immortal, it wasn't as freeing as one would've believed.

Immortality, to sum it up, was like a escaping a near death experience; there was that sense of relief and momentary belief that invincibility was now a quality you possessed, but never would you feel truly comfortable in your own skin, even with the knowledge you had survived another day – not with the knowledge that invincibility and immortality were two separate and distinctive gifts to possess.

_Elijah paused, casting his eyes around, almost as if he was afraid of being followed. Lying never came easily to him; in fact, lies tasted like poison on his lips, yet he chose to consume them, and his family had believed him. _

_Tatia was both a bad and powerful influence on him. She possessed an innocence he adored, but that innocence was quickly fading, and it wasn't hard to guess who might've been leading her astray. He'd seen her wield a sword, a dark look forming in her eyes, as though the power of the weapon she held was enough to tempt her into using it. _

_He feared for her, but to ask her to stay away from Niklaus would wield unpredictable results. He had to play it safe, pretend like he was perfectly content with their secret rendezvous after dark. It thrilled him, to an extent, but he was a noble man deep down, and hated the idea of dishonour in any shape or form, but whether that stemmed from selfishness, a desire to keep his family whole and intact, or something else entirely remained to be seen._

_"Is it far?" he questioned, noticing Tatia had resumed running again, her feet able to move at some speed which outmatched even his. _

_"Not very," she called back, turning back to cast a perfectly formed smile. _

"Good," he murmured aloud, his body bolting upwards, suddenly pulled back into the briefest of moments.

"Not the word I'd use to describe this book," Kol muttered from beside him, tossing an unidentifiable novel into the fire in disgust. "Where are the real authors nowadays? The ones who conjured up powerful images in your head, not spoon-fed you their pretentious ideals?"

"Forgive me, Kol, but I didn't take you to be an avid reader," Elijah coughed, examining his hand with a troubled expression.

There was blood there.

"I partake in a little reading from time to time," Kol protested, slouching. "It doesn't compare to taking part in a riot, or ripping someone's organs out of their body, but it'll do to pass the time."

Elijah had gone again before he could respond, slipping out of the present as easily as he'd stepped back in.

_"Tatia!" he bellowed, losing her amongst the trees. "Tatia..."_

_She reappeared at once, her hands tucked behind her back, her eyes flashing with mischief, shaking her head ever so slightly._

_"It appears I am to be escorting you rather than it being the other way around," she smiled, striding to his side, taking his hand in hers, lightly squeezing it in a way which completely assured him he was right in delivering his affections to her. "Come. We are but a minute away."_

_They walked in silence, side by side, the sun rolling across them almost as though it were following them. He longed to stop somewhere, just to take in the beauty of the day, but Tatia had promised to tell him a little more of herself, but not before showing him her favourite place to come to remove herself from the hungry gazes of the men who constantly harassed her day after day. _

_Peeping through the trees, Elijah soon found out where it was they were. It was a small field – tiny in comparison to the large ones where the farmers grew their crops – but was completely secluded. In the distance, providing a calm soundtrack to the scenery, he could hear the sounds of a stream babbling away._

_There were no flowers to add colour to the scene, but the vivid greens of the grass and trees just stunned him. He found himself stepping forward, the long blades of grass tickling his ankles as he kept on walking, turning back only to see Tatia observing him quietly, something close to her former self returning to her face._

_"Niklaus, your brother, wanted to show me the ground on which he made his first kill," she murmured, staring up at him as he walked back towards her, taking her hands in his. "He knows not the sanctity of life as we do, Elijah. I see something in him that frightens me." She looked away, her eyes averting upwards, as though she was praying to something. "I continue to pursue his company because he continues to call. I know not what fascinates him about me."_

_"My brother..." he spoke slowly, each word deliberate, bitter almost. "He shows violent tendencies like any man. But our father's constant disapproval of him means he consistently has to prove himself, in every aspect of his life. My guess he showed you the grounds of his first kill to gain the sense of approval he has never achieved from our parents who, I fear, distrust him." He gently lifted her chin with one hand, using the other to trace the shape of her face. "As for what fascinates him about you, I imagine it is the same thing which fascinates me – your beauty. The way you look at the world. I've never met anyone quite like you before."_

_She smiled, taking his hand and pressing it against his cheek._

_"You are an honourable man, Elijah. You honour me just by keeping me company. Now, let's dispense of this dreary talk and go sit amongst the grass for a while. We have all day to enjoy each other. Let us make the most of it."_

_"Oh my God... Elijah!" _

Elijah opened his eyes, confused at this addition to an established memory. It took him a moment to recognise Kol, who was staring at him, appearing genuinely fearful, and because of Kol's famously fearless attitude about anything was something they, as a unit, both loved and loathed as a quality of his, he knew something had to be seriously wrong for him to be acting this way.

He went to wipe his forehead, which now was swimming with beads of sweat, only to learn his hands were scarlet in colour, completely coated in his own blood which, he quickly learned, came from his own mouth. Every time he coughed, more blood emitted, and the dull aches were rapidly evolving into stabbing pains.

His eyes widened, his hand flew out to grab his brother's arm, and it hit him for the first time how terrified he was at the idea of dying, despite his numerous centuries of living. Life was something he enjoyed, the culture in each country fascinating him in different ways, and so for everything he'd enjoyed to come to an abrupt end, needless to say, did not seem an enjoyable prospect.

Kol was babbling, starting to panic. "We should get -"

"Get – Get Elena," Elijah demanded, staring at him with wide eyes, his chest rising and falling as each breath literally felt like it had to be _forced _into his body. "Please."

Kol looked dubious.

"I've not been invited in to her house, and the Salvatore bulldogs are fully determined to rip the arms off of anyone who even dares go near the house without authorised permission."

"Find a way!" Elijah barked, closing his eyes. "But... be gentle with the girl. She's not like Tatia...or Katerina. She's innocent."

Kol rolled his eyes.

"I've heard all about the wicked ways of Katerina, although I never met the wretched woman for myself, and Rebekah has made my ears sore venting about the Gilbert girl, so I guess it's all a matter of opinion, right brother?" After watching his brother's face lose a shade of colour, however, he amended, "Your wish is my command, Elijah. I'll get her to you." He paused, hesitating before asking, "Why her, Elijah? I can get the witch and we - "

"I need to tell her - " Elijah murmured, before slipping back into darkness again.

He wasn't sure what he needed to tell her, only that he needed something unbelievably pure and constant by his side, particularly if these were to be his final hours on this earth. He didn't deserve anything good, not after the way he'd lived, but he figured maybe he could get some satisfaction by looking on the face of Elena – imagining perhaps Tatia in her stead, although doing that would only cause him further pain – and remembering that although life could be consistently cruel, it also could dole out moments of beauty and comfort, moments to be treasured rather than banished.

During that blissful day spent with Tatia in her private place of comfort, he'd kissed her fiercely and deeply, the attraction between them stronger than anything he'd ever encountered before. He'd looked at her, at her strong jawline, her effeminate eyes which spoke both of innocence and of strength, at her hourglass figure curving in all the right places, and had fallen in love.

Tatia had been worth all the risks, worth the inevitable fallout between him and Klaus, he realised.

What she hadn't been worth, however, was the centuries spent trying to pick up the pieces of a shattered existence. She'd haunted him, but he'd let her, because spending eternity completely alone seemed unfavourable compared to clinging to a memory he knew he'd never relive.

He realised now part of the desire in killing Klaus all those months, years ago, lay in the fact his brother had been able to move on like she'd been worth nothing, like he'd never had a sparkle brighter than a jewel in his eye because he'd finally found someone willing to give him her undivided attention and devotion (at least, to his initial knowledge it had been undivided), and he'd shown Katerina the remnants of that detachment to anyone who'd worn her face.

Elena was something different entirely, and both he and his brother realised that. She was strong, fierce, but loyal to her family. Both he and Klaus respected that, admired it even, although they went very different ways in showing it. In fact, while she may have regarded Klaus' constant attempts at intimidating her as harassment, Elijah knew his brother was really trying to convey his admiration at her basically refusing to let her family die to save her own skin because, in the long run, it had served him so well.

He didn't know why he kept circling back to Elena.

He just saw so much of the old world in her; the values which had existed back then, such as loyalty, the importance of family, a stubborn desire to do the right thing no matter what the cost of doing so was shone out of her eyes like a shining star in an otherwise dark sky.

The more time he spent with her, the more Elijah found himself starting to care again.

Then again, he suspected he'd let his humanity trickle in a long time ago.

So many of his thoughts, actions, emotions just proved the man he thought had died a long time ago still existed, still lived, but had been on the sidelines for so long that now he'd found his voice again, he was fighting for dominance again with every bit of strength he possessed.

And winning, might he add.

* * *

**A/n: Sorry for the delay in posting this latest chapter up. Just hit a bit of a block trying to figure out where I'm taking this. It's not going to be a particularly long story, unless another plot-line creeps up, but we will learn more about the Originals' past, not necessarily just about Tatia, and for those asking, this isn't going to be a Klaus/Elena/Elijah triangle, but there will be Klaus/Elena scenes a plenty. :) Look forward to that. Thanks for reviewing. You are amazing :)**


	5. Changes

Battered Souls

….

~Chapter 5

Changes

….

Summary: When a mysterious illness strikes Elijah, causing him to confuse Elena with former love Tatia, the whole Original family band together with Elena to try and save his life. Elena/Elijah, with a good dose of the Original family as a side dish ;) A fic that plays havoc with canon – in this story, Alaric didn't complete the transition, so is dead for all intents and purposes (sorry readers) – and is set just after the dance in 3x20.

….

Her dreams were strange ones, memories mixed in with reflections of different people's lives.

In one piece of the kaleidoscope-type of dream, she was Stefan, remorseless, vengeful, immersed in the darkest period of his life. She saw the flashing lights of Chicago, felt the pull of human blood, and could almost picture Klaus there, clad in a tuxedo, his hair swept back in a style of the time.

The dream changed. This time, she was Rebekah, bitter and scornful, but also proud and beautiful, concealing behind her scornful nature a lost girl longing for her family to be whole again. In Elena's dream, she was part of a pivotal moment in Rebekah's life, the moment when her own father drew a sword through her heart, causing her to wake up as something entirely unnatural. She felt the rage, the burning pain inside her, and it was so intense, she almost woke up, desperate to remind herself of reality.

Then, there was a shift. She was herself again, only not quite. She wasn't Katherine either, so that left Tatia as the only possibility left. She was clad in a long dress, her hair flowing down her back, her gaze contemplative as she stood on a hill, the sun just behind her, dipping out of sight as night crawled to fill its absence. As Elena turned – as Tatia – she saw two sets of eyes watching her; one set were filled with compassion, filled with heartbreak, indecision, while the other quickly flooded with every extreme emotion in the book – anger, rage, devastation, fury.

As Tatia, Elena felt herself move, but it was a sensation akin to struggling against a strong current. She tried to move towards Elijah, the owner of the compassionate eyes, but instead, she found herself drawn to Klaus instead, whose mouth begin to leak blood, his eyes darkening to match the sky. She felt the danger and tried to run, but couldn't. All she could do was watch as Elijah, always the better man, fade into the shadows, while she was left to drown in the danger Klaus had always emitted.

Just as she reached Klaus' arms, the dream ended, and Elena found herself gasping herself awake, everything hitting her at once. She pushed her sheets off, slipped out of bed, and went to open the window, the cool night air being the welcome relief she needed. It wasn't quite night, but neither was it dawn; it seemed that right now Mystic Falls was trapped in that in-between period between the end of the night and the beginning of the dawn.

She leaned against the windowsill, her eyes narrowing as they picked up, even against the darkness, a solitary figure standing a few feet away from her house.

She rolled her eyes.

Whether it was Damon or Stefan, it was clear they took protecting her to extreme levels sometimes.

The more she looked, however, the more doubt crept in. The figure who stood there looked thinner than Stefan and Damon, and they didn't particularly move much. She couldn't pick out Damon's trademark leather jacket, or hear the occasional heavy sigh Stefan was prone to releasing in tense situations. The more she looked, the more she became aware Stefan and Damon were _not _the ones standing outside her house, and that drove her curiosity levels soaring.

She tried to rule out who it could be. Stefan and Damon had access to her house, as did Elijah (thanks to Jenna), and Caroline. She knew whoever it was who stood there couldn't possibly be anybody who had access, because no vampire she knew had enough patience (even with an eternity of waiting under their belts) to stand outside rather than wait inside, which was the more sensible choice.

It wasn't Klaus either, because she was pretty sure Klaus wasn't above breaking her house to pieces if he needed to get inside, for whatever reason.

That just left... Kol.

She wasn't sure what to make of him, if she was brutally honest. He didn't seem very likeable, and he had a temper that was worse than Klaus', only he seemed to make a sport of it. The way he'd treated Damon, with a mixture of contempt and bitter amusement, had frightened her, not to mention had sent a shudder of loathing down her spine. And he clearly didn't mind pushing girls around, which showed he was just as terrifying and unpredictable as Klaus.

She wondered whether she dared approach him. She could hear the soft snores of Jeremy – the walls of this house had always been very thin – and knew she wasn't going to wake him, knew she didn't want him getting involved if it was Kol out there.

A burst of light suddenly flooded her vision, and she could see it _was _Kol, who carried a burning torch, his expression, for once, one of disinterest.

"I know you can hear me," he called, his voice loud, but not loud enough to catch the wrong person's attention. "Either invite me inside, or come outside, or your house will be burned to the ground. It's up to you."

She glared into the darkness, but retreated quickly, breathing heavily, her heart racing.

What could the Original family _possibly _need of her now? She'd done her best, but Elijah was fading, and fading fast. Surely, the best thing was for her, like Damon and Stefan had suggested, to stay away, because as much as she regretted what was happening to him, she couldn't deny the appeal of there being one less Original in the world.

Sighing with irritation, Elena threw on some decent clothes, and then scurried quietly down the stairs, her heart giving this unexpected pang at the sight of the empty couch. She took a moment to let the grief in for just a moment, and then she tucked it away because it just wasn't the time to let it fester.

She threw open the front door, shut it quietly behind her, and strode forwards, deciding the key to handling people like Kol was all in the attitude. If she looked confident, like his threats just didn't phase her, maybe she could knock him down a peg or two, but she wasn't really going to hold much hope on that working, given the fact she was a mere human and Kol was a powerful vampire.

"What now?" she asked, her nose flaring, deciding just to be as sarcastic as possible, see if that didn't elicit a proper reaction from him.

He didn't smile, but one corner of his mouth rose, as though he felt briefly amused by her attempts at sounding brave.

"My brother, for some bizarre reason, seems to like your company. He requests your company while his mind is... elsewhere."

She stared stonily at him.

"Really? I can't catch a damn break with you guys?"

Kol tilted his head to one side, his stare definitely a mocking one.

"I was a gentleman, I'll have you know. I did wait until you woke up. I'm not an animal, for God's sake."

A retort rose in her throat, but she choked it back down, deciding she just couldn't win with these people. Kol wasn't going to just walk away, and she knew because Jeremy was back, he had leverage to use against her. She had two options then – one, to go peacefully with him, even though she was still tired, still emotionally worn down, or two, she could've resisted, told him where he and his family could go, but what would that achieve except an escalation of violence?

"Fine," she exhaled, sounding weary, every part of her fighting this decision, but then again every decision she'd had to make since learning about the existence of vampires had emotionally divided her in two, and so she'd learned to quickly adapt to make extremely difficult decisions on the spot. "I'll go with you."

"There." Kol grinned. "Was that so hard?"

He held out a hand, but the gesture mocked her. She gave him a scathing glance.

"You know Klaus once offered me his hand once, the way you have just now," she told him, sarcasm coating her voice. "He led me to die, and for all I know you're leading me to a similar fate, so do me a favour and drop the pretentious act. There's no honour in your family."

She had the satisfaction of watching his smile disappear, before she walked past him. She knew she needed to at least be on par with the Originals verbally, seeing how she could never match them in strength, otherwise they would not respect her at all. At some point, she wasn't going to be of any use to them – Klaus, of course, being the glaring exception to this – and she had to prepare herself to negotiate herself out of yet another mess, and maybe she was just fooling herself, but she'd caught a glimpse of something in Kol's eyes which told her maybe she'd at least surprised him tonight by not playing the damsel-in-distress card.

He wasn't particular chauvinistic, seeing how he didn't particularly care about any human in general, but she had a feeling his attitude towards her was influenced by Rebekah, seeing how she was sure the female Original was far from being her biggest fan, and seeing how she'd reached a place where Elijah had respected her, maybe even _liked _her, Elena figured she had to somehow win the rest of the Originals round into keeping her alive.

They were a family at the end of the day, and that was the one redeeming quality which prevented her from just ignoring them altogether.

She respected the fact that everything they did, they did for each other, even if Klaus pretended otherwise. She would go to similar lengths to protect her family and friends, and on that level only did she feel she was on par with the Originals.

….

There had been a calm in amongst the storm of his illness, for lack of a better word. In between moments of feverish pain, Elijah contemplated his life with the same solemnity any human possesses on the point of death.

He smiled at the good memories – the moments when Klaus and Rebekah would mercilessly tease each other, chasing each other through the trees, calling each other names bathed in affection, the hours they would spend as siblings telling stories, some simply ridiculous, whilst others had a certain ring of truth to them that would resonate them for days afterwards (this was Finn's speciality) – and would frown at the bad, although he certainly saw the bad in a completely new way.

He understood Klaus' reasoning for keeping them all locked in coffins, although it was still hard to forgive him for it. It had kept them all together, although in the end they'd been different people anyway, and life had just cast them all on different paths. In the end, _always and forever _had seemed like a hard promise to keep.

He turned at the sound of footsteps, noticing Kol who was...escorting _Tatia? _

No.

_No. _

He blinked, trying to restore focus, but memories and realities just transmogrified, meaning it was hard to distinguish one from the other. Tatia had been so beautiful, but her innocence had been deceiving. She'd started off like Elena, pure and undeniably loyal, but she'd been corrupted, and not necessarily by Klaus.

_"Brother..." he remembered Niklaus saying, sweeping in one day, his hair longer than Elijah had ever seen it, giving him a regal appearance. "We need to talk."_

_Elijah, who'd been sharpening his sword, didn't respond at first. There was only really one area of topic they had in common which Niklaus could've possibly have wanted to have discussed with him, and out of wanting to not come to blows over it, they'd avoided speaking about the truth they'd both known and both hurt over. _

_"Must we do this right now, Niklaus?" he enquired. "Father shall be returning from the neighbouring village soon and - "_

_"I care not for father right now," Niklaus interrupted sharply. "We have avoided this particular discussion because of our love for one another, Elijah, but we must talk about Tatia."_

_Elijah rose to his feet, trying to appear nonchalant when, in reality, he felt tense. Niklaus was undeniably strong, and his quick temper meant he could lash out at unexpected moments, like the time he'd struck Finn for daring to suggest the rift between the parents was to do with him. He, on no accounts, wanted to fight his brother, but maybe it was time for them to exchange a few home truths. _

_"Do you not think Tatia should be privy to our exchange? It seems quite rude to not include her in a discussion in which she plays a central role?" he asked, raising an eyebrow inquisitively._

_A sneer curled his brother's lips._

_"Look at you. Defending her honour. She has a spirit on her, brother. I doubt you could handle it."_

_Elijah couldn't believe what Niklaus was even starting here._

_"She has spirit indeed," he agreed, trying to be amicable. "But she's also pure and noble and - "_

_Niklaus began to laugh, and the rudeness of it angered Elijah, who normally was even tempered, finding rage fuelled violence which he strived to avoid at all costs. He was a diplomatic man, if nothing else._

_"We must be meeting with two separate women then, brother, because the Tatia I know possesses something I would not dress up as innocence," he chuckled. _

_"Well, maybe being in your presence has corrupted her a little," Elijah remarked, his voice like ice at this point. "You and I both are aware of your more than intimidating façade which you've had to develop as a second skin since our father has multiplied his verbal attacks on you."_

_Niklaus scowled, deep lines sculpting his face into something unpleasant._

_"He hates me, Elijah, considers me weak, impulsive, and I learned long ago not to go seeking for his approval for anything." His eyes flashed with coldness. "Tatia - "_

_" - is someone you seek to impress, seeing how the rest of us became immune to your little parlour tricks long ago," Elijah responded, now aware that whatever chivalry they'd shown each other before was gone, and that a great change was to befall them, shifting their relationship into a negative area it had never gone before. _

_Niklaus smiled, but no trace of warmth existed there. The more naïve, kinder Niklaus was fading before Elijah's very eyes, and there was nothing he could do about it except try and remind his brother that things didn't have to change, that just because their father treated him like a loathsome creature didn't meant he had to become one. _

_"I wonder, whether in between your moonlight walks and your trips to your secret little meadow whether Tatia told you about the fire which destroyed her entire family? I wonder whether she told you about the terrible pain which was inflicted upon them before they died, how they writhed in agony, begging for forgiveness that would never be delivered to them?"_

_"Tatia wouldn't..."_

_"Tatia wouldn't, no," Niklaus agreed evenly, his eyes flashing with something dark._

_Elijah looked at his brother, and felt something cold trickle down his spine._

_"Please tell me you didn't. Niklaus - "_

_"Nobody understands more than I how much it hurts when your own family finds your existence shameful," Niklaus murmured, averting his eyes. "I think it's best you stay uninvolved, Elijah. You always valued nobility and honour, and becoming mixed up with Tatia will taint the very ideals you uphold, so - "_

_"If you are trying to make me back down, I'm afraid you will not succeed," Elijah spoke through gritted teeth. "What Tatia needs is to be rid of your corrupting influence. I hardly think she knows - "_

_"Oh she knows," Niklaus interrupted. "The conditions she put in place were that I spare her child, who wasn't even there when I looked anyway, and that I not do anything to put myself in danger." He gave a crooked smile. "She isn't as innocent as you'd like to believe, brother. The qualities you believe I've influenced her to possess? They already existed."_

_Elijah gave his brother a cold stare._

_"There's no honour in revenge, Niklaus, particularly when the revenge you carry out is not your own to carry."_

_"There's a little honour in revenge, don't you find?" Niklaus' smile widened fractionally. "Stand down, Elijah, and maybe you won't find out the lengths I am prepared to go to in order to prove I am nothing that my father says I am."_

_Elijah shook his head; already, his brother had made himself a stranger, and he feared that this was just the beginning._

_"Maybe you should stand down, Niklaus," he warned. "Taking this path will only lead you to dark places, and I will not watch you destroy yourself that way. Do not ask that of me."_

_He turned, striding away from his brother, unsure whether his motives in doing so lay in the fact it was unbearable to have spoken aloud their mutual feelings for Tatia, or that he was truly afraid for his brother and just didn't want to acknowledge that there was a chance his brother may have taken a path that just could only lead to a violent road._

He opened his eyes, that particularly memory replaying itself over and over. Had he known just how their story would've played out, maybe he would've handled the situation differently. Even before vampire-hood, Klaus had shown an aggressive side that was presumably manufactured to counter accusations that he was weak. Though he'd still shown affection towards Rebekah, he'd stopped hanging around her so much, had stopped showing any outward signs that his family had meant something to him, which meant when he'd turned, all of that and more had been magnified, and the rage which had festered inside him for years and built up and exploded.

All of a sudden, he found himself rushing to his feet, pushing Kol to his feet as his hand reached out and grabbed Elena's neck.

"Is what my brother told me about you true?" he snarled, shaking her slightly. "Did you condone the murders of your own _family?"_

"Elijah - " Elena choked out, struggling for air. "It's – _me._"

He let out a noise of contempt.

It was another thing Petrovas had in common – their ability to lie.

Kol's arms flung themselves around his neck, dragging him backwards. Enraged, he turned, pushing his brother away from him, turning towards Elena, who had slumped to the ground, massaging her throat.

"Elijah!" Kol roared, trying to restrain his brother. "Listen to me!"

"Why? So you can just tear our family apart again?" Elijah snapped, blinking rapidly, an intense amount of pain hitting his stomach, causing him to double over in pain.

Kol simply stared, but only hesitated for a split second before wrestling him back to the couch, keeping his hand locked on his throat.

"You asked me to bring you the Gilbert girl, remember?" he emphasised, shaking his brother. "Please focus, Elijah. You're not yourself."

Elijah merely snarled, gathering up his strength before pushing back with vicious determination.

Elena, who'd risen to her feet at this point, made for the door, frightened by his erratic behaviour, but in one fluent motion, he'd grabbed her, pulling her back by her hair, causing a frightened shriek to escape her lips.

"Oh, for _heaven's _sake!" came an irritated voice, as Rebekah entered the room, her face twisted with disgust.

She strode over, came swiftly between Elijah and Elena, and proceeded, with the help of Kol, to wrestle Elijah back into submission, the pair of them using their combined strength to get him back to the couch.

Rebekah then began to hum a few bars of a song that didn't register with Elena but which seemed to affect Elijah, who froze, his eyes widening slightly as he ceased struggling and lay back down. Sweat poured from his skin, making it appear shinier, and his lips trembled, shaped around one name – Tatia.

Rebekah then fluently retrieved a damp cloth, pressing it against Elijah's head, all the while humming that same tune.

"Nicely done, Rebekah," complimented Kol grimly. "You couldn't have gotten here any sooner?"

"Couldn't you have done a better job of controlling the situation?" she fired back. "Never trust a man to do a woman's job."

"Never trust a woman to not complain about something, because she will always find something," Kol retorted.

She gave a grimace, but didn't respond, her eyes flashing over to Elena.

"Get over here," she snapped.

"What?" Elena enquired, looking shocked.

"I said get over here," Rebekah demanded.

Elena didn't have much time to react before Kol had grabbed her wrist, pulling her over to where Rebekah was sat, Elijah curled up pathetically in her arms like he was an infant, a sight which strangely tugged at her.

"It's clear my brother becomes pathetic over you Petrovas," Rebekah said, her tone full of contempt. "Now since your stupid ancestor started this whole mess, you can fix it."

"How?" Elena exclaimed, genuinely clueless. "He doesn't know who I am! He's not in his right head right now."

Rebekah shot her a look which had enough venom in it to poison her.

"Maybe not, but since he's mumbling on about Tatia all the _freaking _time, I guess he's not going to be listening to any of _us _right now, so you're our best shot at getting him to calm down," she said darkly.

"Rebekah," Elena began, holding her hands out, trying to establish some peace between them.

"Save it, Elena," Rebekah cut across her, turning away from her. "If you're hoping this experience will stop me from wanting to rip your throat out, it won't. As such, I promise not to hurt you while you're helping my brother, but if he gets worse under your care, I will rip your heart out, and I will make it hurt, are we clear?"

"Crystal," Elena replied frostily.

Hesitantly, she went and replaced Rebekah, taking the damp cloth and dabbing Elijah's forehead as he stared blankly up at her.

"Elena," he croaked, finally registering her.

"Ssh," she soothed, her throat clogging up with an unrecognisable emotion. "We'll save you, Elijah."

"I don't want to be seen like this," he grumbled.

"I know," she responded. "Believe me, I know." She hesitated, a question popping into her mind that she wasn't sure she wanted answering, but after a moment, she decided she was going to ask it anyway. "What was she like? Tatia?"

Elijah let a lazy smile curl across his face.

"Beautiful, naturally. She was quite the dreamer too, always envisioning a better future. When she was with me, I felt she possessed this spirit that I'd seen no other woman possess. For some, it made her dangerous. I admired it, and I daresay Niklaus did too, although his intentions with her differed from mine."

"How?"

"Well, I for one desired every part of her – mind, body and soul. Niklaus, for the most part, desired her because he felt she was the only person in his world who was even vaguely proud of him. It was nonsense of course; we – that is to say, me, Rebekah and Kol, I was never sure about Finn, loved and doted on Niklaus, but he never quite saw that. I used to believe Tatia was corrupted by Niklaus, but I do believe they corrupted each other."

Elena frowned. "What makes you believe that?"

"Because they brought out the worst in each other," Elijah recalled. "Tatia was innocent and beautiful, but even I saw that she was bitter, damaged by her past, and that made her vulnerable. Niklaus had never received an ounce of affection from our father growing up, and so he became angry, bitter, and soon lost sight of all that he had. We...fought many times over her, and I tried to save them both but people, even in those days, have this remarkable way of being blind to their most obvious flaws."

Elena couldn't help but smile, because he always did articulate things so beautifully.

In the distance, she heard Kol murmur, "Well, you can't deny her presence here has already done him a world of good."

She didn't hear Rebekah's (no doubt) contemptuous reply, but instead concentrated on listening to Elijah.

"You really loved her," she marvelled quietly.

His eyes rolled onto hers.

"You're surprised?"

"It's hard to imagine any of you in love," she confessed. "I just – I have trouble picturing it. I don't doubt it, but after everything -"

"I understand," he said, and it sounded like he genuinely meant it.

Something settled over Elena then she did not expect at all.

Clarity.

She saw Elijah as a human in that moment, and disregarded the vampire aspects entirely, finding when he was at his most vulnerable, ironically enough, that was when his strength shone through, and she loved that about him.

Taking care of him like this was quite different from when she'd taken care of Damon. There was still an air of mystery around Elijah, and yet he seemed a very different person, someone she could definitely have called a friend. In that moment, she forgot about him holding her hostage, forgot about the part he played in letting Klaus escape after the ritual, and just focused on the growing feeling which swelled in her heart.

It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling by an means, but she did know she was growing to like Elijah, perhaps more than she should've. He possessed a chequered past, and an even more uncertain future, and she was determined to help him.

What Damon and Stefan would make of her decision, she had no idea, but she knew this was more than just down to her desire to help people in general, but identifying the real reason why she was helping scared her, because it would mean adding yet another thing to a growing list of things to worry about.

So instead, like everything else in her life, she pushed it to the back of her mind and concentrated solely on the task in hand.

* * *

**A/n: Big thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far. Just come back from a Vampire Diaries convention, so met Nathaniel Buzolic (Kol), Claire Holt (Rebekah), Ian Somerhalder (Damon), Paul Wesley (Stefan), Steven R McQueen (Jeremy) and Malese Jow (Anna). Had such a fantastic time, I cannot believe I met them :) Meeting them inspired this latest chapter :) This was my favourite to write, and there will be plenty more flashbacks to come! :)**


	6. Truths

Battered Souls

….

~Chapter 6

Truths

….

Summary: When a mysterious illness strikes Elijah, causing him to confuse Elena with former love Tatia, the whole Original family band together with Elena to try and save his life. Elena/Elijah, with a good dose of the Original family as a side dish ;) A fic that plays havoc with canon – in this story, Alaric didn't complete the transition, so is dead for all intents and purposes (sorry readers) – and is set just after the dance in 3x20.

….

Elena spent what must've been hours simply dabbing Elijah's sweaty brow, listening to him talk about his life before his mother had turned them all into vampires. Some pieces of information she stored away for future reference, others she simply noted with the same fascination anybody would have when hearing the life tale of a particularly foreboding individual.

Kol and Rebekah kept watch on her, and she knew it was her they were specifically looking at because she could feel the intensity of their stares burning a hole in her back. _They asked for my help, yet they clearly don't trust me _she couldn't help but think wryly, but to utter such a comment aloud would've been asking for trouble.

At some point, Elijah's eyes closed, and he fell into a troubled sleep, his eyes twitching even as they lay shut, his body shaking slightly, showing even in slumber, vampires were entirely active. Without really knowing what to do in this situation, she kept the cold cloth pressed against his forehead, not wishing to appear as though she were over-coddling him.

She felt so thirsty, which was perhaps an inappropriate desire to crop up in a house filled with vampires, but she didn't dare ask if she could get a drink. Kol and Rebekah didn't trust her, didn't _like _her, therefore weren't exactly going to consider her needs as something to prioritise. This was fair enough, considering the state their brother was in, but at the same time, it was so unfair that she, once again, had to put her grief and her own personal needs aside just to take care of the least detestable member of an overbearing family which had invaded her town.

She was sure by now someone had noticed she was missing. It was only a matter of time before they invaded here, and secretly she hoped they did, just so she could get a damn break to recover and recuperate after all the stresses of the past few days.

"Here."

Someone pressed something into her hands. She glanced at it, surprised to see it was a bottle of water. The simplicity of the gesture caught her off guard, because nowadays you were never given something without it coming at a price, the best example of this being her continued existence at the cost of being Klaus' blood bag for the rest of her natural life. She looked up into the disinterested eyes of Kol, giving him a questioning stare, trying to fathom for herself what he was up to here.

"Don't want you dying on us now, do we?" came his callous reply, but she felt like it was the _expected _answer, not the one he really meant to give.

Kol struck her as someone who'd been a certain way for so long, that changing his personality was out of the question. Any kindness shown came from a manufactured state of selfishness, and there had to be an element of cruelness shown to maintain the strong façade she was sure he'd always had.

"Thanks," Elena responded, yawning loudly despite herself, which got a reaction out of Rebekah immediately.

"Oh, sorry. Is helping our dying brother something of a _burden _for you?"

Elena glared at Rebekah, her exhaustion bringing out this new side to her which could no longer tolerate the verbal abuse Rebekah directed towards her, however much it may have been justified (to a point).

"Will you cut me some slack?" she demanded. "I've lost the last parental figure I had in my life, and instead of getting to grieve, I have to help _you!_ I'm aware you hate me, Rebekah, and I get why, but you of all people should know what it's like to lose people you care about, so don't question the fact I'm so _exhausted _from trying to pretend I'm okay that it shows occasionally, okay?"

To her credit, Rebekah didn't deliver her usual snappish retort in her direction, but actually looked abashed for half a second.

"That shut _you_ up now, didn't it?" Kol murmured, sounding amused, and it immediately broke whatever spell had distracted Rebekah from being her usual uptight, bitter self.

"Oh shut _up_, Kol."

Elena closed her eyes, allowing her grief for Alaric to emerge for just a moment. She felt his loss with every fibre of her very being, and it crushed her that had it not been for her forcing him to take his ring back, he might not have ended up the way he had. It seemed selfish to force the blame onto herself, making it appear as though she felt sorry for herself, but she couldn't help the way her mind unravelled everything.

She still remembered how, after learning about Katherine's dark past, she'd broken down in Stefan's arms, telling him how everyone she loved was in danger.

_"It's because of me," _she'd sobbed. _"It's all because of me!"_

Oh, how true that statement rang now. Even those who hadn't been in danger before had suffered nonetheless because of her importance to Klaus, because of the face she'd worn. Even now, she was stuck here because of Elijah's undeniable connection with her ancestor, Tatia, and it sort of wore her down how many times she was going to have to hear about her.

She only hoped Tatia was dead and gone, because she did not need another version of herself running around. Just knowing Katherine was still out there was enough to give her a headache, so to imagine Tatia might've been alive and well too... She just hated the thought, so quickly banished it from her mind before it festered.

The sound of footsteps made them all look around. Klaus entered the room, not even vaguely surprised to see her there, his arms folded, his expression grim.

"What's going on?" Rebekah enquired.

"I've been to see an old friend, who unfortunately delivered a few home truths I'm afraid we're all going to have to adjust to," Klaus informed, every part of his body tense.

"Such as...?" Kol prompted impatiently.

"Such as the fact the witches _are_ behind this." Klaus strode across the room, staring intently at his brother. "They're using a mixture of dark magic – the darkest kind - and the death of the history teacher, Alaric, to slowly poison us all, one by one."

"How are they using the teacher's death exactly? He's _dead_, so it's not like he's giving them a hand with their spell!" Rebekah demanded, stricken.

Klaus sighed.

"It's complicated, but in short terms, when a human dies, very much like for any supernatural being, their death leaves an imprint upon the earth. For humans, the imprint doesn't last very long, to match the shortness of their lives, but because Esther used him to try and create another Original – do not get me started on the irony of _that_ – it's sealed the imprint of his "soul", so to speak, long enough for them to use magic with it."

"How does that even work?" Kol asked, sounding confused.

"Death is part of nature. The witches use nature, and all of her tools at their disposal, for magic. What don't you get exactly?"

"So how do we fix him, Nick?" Rebekah asked, her voice quiet. "And how did they even _get _to him anyway? He's not even been here that much."

The question _why him and not me? _might not have been asked, but it was implied in her tone, and Elena felt herself begrudgingly respect Rebekah for that. Despite their outward hostility towards each other – more on Rebekah's side, than hers – Elena knew Rebekah was still trying to live as normal life as she could, that she wasn't that different from the girl she'd been a long, long time ago, and that she loved her family more than anything else, which, again, Elena could relate to.

In that sense, they were similar – more so than they could've ever have predicted – but past grudges prevented them from ever acknowledging their similarities aloud.

"I have no idea," Klaus admitted. "And why they would target him escapes me. Unless..."

"Unless what?"

"Unless taking Elijah down is a way of lowering our guard for an unprecedented attack," Klaus finished, if possible looking more grim than before.

It was then he seemed to see Elena, his expression thoughtful as he regarded her. She suddenly felt wary, and though she couldn't read his mind, she felt like whatever he was thinking about now, he was mentally putting her into the picture somehow, and that could only be bad.

"So what do we do?" Rebekah asked, clearly trying to establish some sort of plan, unlike Kol, who just appeared vacant, apparently for once shocked into silence.

"Is it even possible to save him?" Kol piped up, grim.

Klaus looked at Elena, then back at his siblings, then back at Elena again. She tried to assess what he wasn't saying exactly, but he'd always been hard to read. She figured whatever information he was holding back, it had to have some bad consequences because she knew exactly what it was like to hold back information under the impression doing so would save a lot of heartache and grief, when in reality it had the opposite effect entirely.

"I'm - " he began, before the sound of the doorbell caught them all off guard.

Elena stiffened, aware it was probably someone she knew, maybe Damon or Stefan, although she couldn't imagine them waiting for the door to be opened, because neither possessed much patience when it came to these sort of situations.

Rebekah, as if sensing her thoughts, immediately crossed over to where she was, grabbing her arm and pulling her to her feet before she could even do so herself.

"Don't even think about it," she murmured, her lips by her ear.

Elena flinched at the contact, but pressed her lips into a firm line, aware making her thoughts known was only justifiable if she possessed a death wish, which she didn't.

Klaus disappeared, only for him to resurface with an angry Caroline in tow.

"Elena," she exclaimed, looking relieved. "_There _you are! Damon and Stefan - "

"- sent you in to to check up on us?" Klaus smiled tightly. "Since when did they make you do their dirty work for you?"

Caroline flashed him a dirty look.

"Since they've realised you don't fight fair," she retorted. "They sent me in because for some reason, your fascination with me seems to be what's keeping you from killing me, so a girl's gotta work with what she's got, right?"

"Caroline, don't - " Elena began, wincing at how tight Rebekah's grip on her arm was.

"Let her go," Caroline growled, aiming this at Rebekah, clearly not here to negotiate.

Rebekah smiled.

"I would, but she does make the perfect hostage, wouldn't you agree? You take one more step, and I'll break her arm."

"Rebekah - " Klaus said warningly.

"Relax, Nick. I didn't say I would _kill _her." Rebekah rolled her eyes. "God forbid someone should lose or break your most valuable asset."

Klaus ignored her, his attention on Caroline. Elena, who hadn't been made aware of Klaus' infatuation with Caroline, suddenly saw the way his eyes softened slightly as he gazed at her. She saw his fists clench, then unclench, like he was battling some internal conflict, and rather than find the thought revolting, she found herself marvelling at how human even the most inhumane of villains could appear, given the right trigger.

Suddenly, Caroline seemed to notice Elijah, the surprise diluting the worst of her anger. Her lips twisted to one side, almost as if she was contemplating something heavily. Her eyes widened and narrowed alternatively, as she assessed the situation for herself.

"He's dying?" she asked eventually.

Klaus lost that shred of warmth in his eyes.

"Yes," he said shortly.

"I'm sorry." She didn't particularly sound it. "He might be an Original, but I could at least tolerate _him_." It was the highest compliment she was ever going to give. "Please let Elena go."

"We need her," Rebekah insisted, pulling Elena close towards her, in a gesture that was anything but affectionate.

"Why? She can't do anything here, anymore than you all can," Caroline exclaimed.

"Maybe not," Kol piped up, his dark eyes hovering on each person in turn. "But it seems our brother is a hell of a lot calmer than he was before I retrieved her. For some bizarre reason, Elijah seems keen on her..."

"What?" Caroline spluttered, her eyes widening at that. "You kept that quiet, Elena."

"You kept Klaus' infatuation with you secret too!" Elena shot back, causing a deep blush to bloom in her friend's cheeks.

"Different situation!" Caroline emphasised.

"How is it?"

"At least the Original who fancies _you _has a relatively clean slate in the murder department."

"Oh, my brother is a dark horse," Kol chimed in, grinning at the banter between Elena and Caroline, a dark glint present in his eyes. "He'll lead you to believe he's a noble creature, but really his hands are just as bloody as all of ours." He slyly glanced towards Klaus. "Perhaps with the exception of Nick here."

"I think I preferred you when you remained about as animated as a statue," Klaus responded darkly. "You know what they say; silence is golden, particularly when that silence hovers around your lifeless corpse, Kol."

"Ouch." Kol clutched his hands to his chest, pretending to look wounded. "A thousand daggers to the heart could surely not hurt as much as that remark just did."

"Boys!" Rebekah growled, clutching Elena's arm so tight, she couldn't help but wince. "Haven't we something more important to do here, like, say _saving our brother's life?"_

"Yes, while you do that, I'll take Elena - " Caroline began, stepping forward, only for Klaus to step in front of her.

"I can't let you do that," he said mildly.

She let out a furious hissing sound.

"Why?" she demanded. "Elijah seems doomed, no offence, and my bet is when he does go, you're all gonna take out your grief and anger on the only person you can, and as her best friend, it is my sole duty to tell you all to go screw yourselves, because if you keep dragging Elena to help you for every little thing you need, she's going to end up a train wreck of a human being."

"So?" Rebekah sneered, unmoved by that remark. "Seems to me she's pretty much that way anyway."

Caroline glared at her.

"Wow. You know Elena hasn't done a damn thing to you, putting aside that whole 'stabbing in the back' incident."

"Most would call that grounds for revenge, you know," Rebekah pointed out snidely.

Caroline ploughed on, ignoring that comment.

"She told you the truth about your family, about what really happened to your mother. She's had more cause than you to get revenge, but she hasn't. And if all of that isn't enough to merit a thank you, she's here, helping you, when she's currently grieving and sleep deprived and probably not in the mood to be around ANY vampires, but of course you Originals don't think of yourselves do you? You just take, take, take, no matter what the consequences are."

"Well, that's a given," Kol remarked lazily. "We are the _original _vampires. We're practically royalty."

Caroline threw him a disdainful look.

"Caroline, it's fine -" Elena tried to say, if only to prevent her friend from getting mauled by Rebekah, who looked murderous to say the least.

"No, Elena, it's not," Caroline snapped. "There are such things as limits, and you've reached yours. You need to stop caring about people who frankly couldn't give a damn whether you live or died."

She looked at Klaus, who seemed to appear impressed, though what by she couldn't quite imagine. She quite liked it though, because it meant he respected her, and ironically enough, she was appealing to _him_ rather than the rest of his familybecause he seemed the likeliest one to budge on this matter.

Their eyes met, something passing between them which surprised her. She saw the earnestness there, the bare need to help his brother somehow, and she found herself feeling (just a little bit) for him. She'd had to let her father go, had sat by and watched him die before her, and now Klaus was having to go through the same thing, only this wasn't a choice for Elijah; he was dying, and there was nothing they could do.

"Let the girl go, Rebekah," he said slowly, surprising her (and himself).

"What?" Rebekah looked furious. "Why? You said it yourself we need her. You can't let this harlot..."

Instantly, Klaus blurred towards her, his hand reaching out to grab her throat, Elena using this distraction to get to Caroline, who sped them out of the house before anyone else could even move.

"Don't insult her, Rebekah," Klaus warned, his voice dangerously low.

"You're pathetic," Rebekah sneered, looking contemptuous. "Letting a baby vampire twist your black heart like that. For shame."

"Forgive me for labelling you a hypocrite if I'm wrong, but I'm sure you fell for a certain Salvatore back in the twenties. He was hardly in your league now was he?"

"That was different!"

"I fail to see how!"

Rebekah's eyes swam with tears, and he could see he'd broached a topic of conversation which didn't rest at all well with her.

That would teach her perhaps to stop meddling in dangerous waters herself then.

"You took Stefan away from me. Wiped away the love I gave him like it was something disgusting," she snapped, suddenly furious Rebekah again. "I haven't done anything to Caroline."

"Might I interrupt your banter for half a second to point out our brother has gone walkabouts," Kol pointed out, sounding, for half a beat, concerned, a tone which was so disassociated with his normal personality, that it caused Rebekah and Klaus to spin around, assessing the sincerity in his words.

It was true; where Elijah had been moments ago, there now lay an empty couch.

"Why weren't you watching him?" Klaus roared in Kol's direction.

"Because between watching a sick man sleep, and watching the two of you bicker yourselves to death – figuratively speaking, of course – I go with the second option every time," Kol offered, grinning feebly.

Rebekah threw him a scornful look; Klaus simply glared.

"I see my attempts at humour have, once again, drastically been misfired." Kol sighed. "So...who's up for a little game of Hide and Go Seek Elijah?"

….

"Thanks for saving me, Caroline," Elena said, somewhat distractedly as they walked briskly down the street to where her car was, climbing in each side, exchanging a look of relief at being out here, away from the Originals.

"No problem." Caroline flashed her a smile as she started the engine. "I had to restrain Damon and Stefan from hunting you down themselves, because given their rash personalities, I know all they would've achieved was a shortened eternal lifespan."

"They just ask too much of me," Elena said, sounding helpless, not quite sure if she was referring to the Original family here, or Damon and Stefan, because the statement could've honestly have applied to both. "I try to – I mean, Elijah doesn't deserve..." She fell silent. "I can't justify why I want to help him, Caroline. He's the noblest of his family, and he just - "

"I know," she nodded, smiling weakly. "Believe me, I know what it's like trying to justify letting an Original into your heart."

"You and Klaus...?"

"God, no." She shuddered. "I don't _want _there to be a me and Klaus. It's so messed up on every level." Her eyes turned sad, wistful even. "But he's there," she pounded on the area where her heart was, "all the same. He's nice to me, and the fact he let you go... oh he knows the game he's playing... well, it just makes me sort of...respect him."

"But we can't forget what he did to Tyler. Or Jenna..."

"I know that." Caroline said softly. "Nobody's asking you to. This is my crap to deal with, Elena. I just..." She shrugged. "I love Tyler. That will never change."

"But..." Elena prompted.

"But nothing. That will never change." Caroline hesitated a second too long. "I just like the human side of Klaus, okay? Not _like _like, but you know what I mean. It seems to only flare up around me, so I just take advantage of that every now and then, you know?"

Elena grinned.

"I've never seen you so tongue tied, Caroline."

"What? Oh...shut up." Caroline poked her tongue out. "Let's just keep our stupid feelings for these stupid Originals between ourselves, okay? Last thing we need is a judgemental comment from Damon who, by the way, is just asking for a smack around the face. He gets so overprotective when it comes to you."

"It's because he loves me," Elena said, somewhat wistfully.

"Yeah, well, I love you too, but you don't see me wrapping metaphorical chains around you," Caroline muttered darkly, suddenly focusing on something on the road up ahead. "What's that?"

Elena stared ahead, then gave a sharp gasp, recognising the suited figure.

"Caroline! Watch out!"

Caroline slammed on the brakes, letting out a stream of cursive words as the car was slow to react. The body of the car made contact with the figure, causing it to veer wildly out of control in the direction of the pavement. When the wheels came into contact with the pavement, they couldn't help but rock against it, meaning the entire car came crashing to the side.

Elena's head at this point slammed back, and the memory of both car crashes she'd been involved in last year – the one on Wickery Bridge, and the other seemingly in the middle of nowhere, which Damon had rescued her from – came screaming back. She couldn't help the faint whimper of terror which escaped her lips; even now, being in cars still made her incredibly nervous, and now this was just one more experience to chalk up to the fact she wasn't safe anywhere.

"Are you okay?" Caroline asked, turning towards her, her own face chalk white.

Elena couldn't speak, so she just simply nodded, her breathing coming out in short, sparse gasps.

"I'm going to get out, and lift the car back into place," Caroline instructed. "Will you be okay?"

"Go," Elena managed to wheeze out, still in shock, her entire body trembling. "Please."

Caroline, who was the only one who had access to a door that wasn't blocked by the pavement, of all things, nodded, and unbuckled her seatbelt, pushing open the door and springing out gracefully.

Elena waited for a moment, bracing herself for the moment when the car would be turned back to its side. She had to be grateful at being in a car crash with Caroline of all people, whose new-found strength was surely an asset during this occasion. But she strained her ears, the sound of something snapping – a sharp sound, akin to a whip cracking against the silence – catching her attention, before the sound of a soft thump replaced it.

"Caroline?" she called weakly, waiting for the response that never came. "CAROLINE!"

She let out a scream of shock as the entire car moved, her body veering to one side as someone (Caroline, she hoped) brought the car back to its original position. Letting out a weak laugh of relief, she unbuckled her seatbelt, opening the badly dented door before staggering out, greedily inhaling the fresh air as her still shaking body came to grips with what had happened.

Her eyes then fell onto the figure lying on the ground, the head twisted at a horrible angle, golden hair fanned around her like a halo, and she gasped. She knew Caroline wasn't dead – not permanently anyway – but the sight was still unpleasant to see.

Elena turned just in time to see Elijah standing in front of her, eyes bloodshot, his face fully vamped out. She tried to speak, but something in his eyes – the lack of clarity, perhaps the way he just seemed to see through her – told her she wouldn't be able to reason with him. Not while he was so out of it like this.

It was strange seeing him vamped out; she was used to seeing him so composed, so together, but then again over the past twenty-four hours she'd seen a lot of sides to him she'd rather not have known about; this, then, was no exception.

She gazed at the veins around his eyes, at the way they seemed to bulge like they were about the explode. His white fangs popped from his mouth, sliding effortlessly into view, and it was then she knew when she'd pictured vampires way before Stefan and Damon had burst into her lives, she'd pictured them the way Elijah looked right now; almost regal looking in appearance, but displaying the monstrous aspect of their natures with dramatic flair.

"Elijah," she breathed, her eyes flicking to Caroline's too still body before landing back on him.

"Tatia," he snarled, and despite the fact he was fully vamped out, she saw pain there, and she knew whatever had happened between them, however their story had ended, it still haunted him.

Would her story with Stefan and Damon end in a similar way? Was it worth breaking free from their hold now before it ended in tragedy?

Elena had hardly time to think before she saw a flash of white blur towards her and, in lieu of any other options, she threw her arms around her face and let out a sharp high-pitched scream.

* * *

**A/n: So excited for the next few chapters of this story because Elena is going to eventually bond with each of the Originals in turn. Hope you liked the sprinkle of Klaroline in this chapter, because it was quite hard to incorporate that in this particular chapter, but yeah, the action will pick up the pace, and we'll see how the Originals plan on saving their brother. :)Keep reviewing because I love reading your thoughts and theories :) Thanks!**


	7. Perspectives

Battered Souls

….

~Chapter 7

Perspectives

….

Summary: When a mysterious illness strikes Elijah, causing him to confuse Elena with former love Tatia, the whole Original family band together with Elena to try and save his life. Elena/Elijah, with a good dose of the Original family as a side dish ;) A fic that plays havoc with canon – in this story, Alaric didn't complete the transition, so is dead for all intents and purposes (sorry readers) – and is set just after the dance in 3x20.

….

Elena waited for the pain, for Elijah's sharp teeth to pierce her, but it never came. Surprised, she looked up, noticing Kol and Klaus had suddenly emerged from somewhere, and were wrestling their (frankly) manic brother.

Rebekah suddenly appeared in front of her, looking expressionless, outstretching a hand, which she took reluctantly, not even realising she'd stumbled to the ground trying to protect herself. As the female Original helped her up, she looked into her eyes, and saw something close to regret in her eyes.

"He's lost to us," Rebekah murmured, her usual bite gone from her voice.

"No he isn't." Elena shook her head. "There'll be a way to save him."

Rebekah looked at her, still scornful, yet there seemed to be mingled hope there as well, as if she wanted to believe that more than anything else.

"How can you do that? How can you toss out a few words of hope and cling to them like they are the only thing keeping you from drowning? I can't live that way. I don't want to live on false hope."

"False hope might be false, but it's still hope," Elena pointed out. "What's the point of living if you don't have hope that life might just get better? I've been through hell because of your family, because of the way you live your lives, but I still have hope that there's something good in you. It's why I want to help Elijah."

Rebekah's lips curled into a sneer.

"Yes, you paint quite an idyllic picture of hope, yet I'm sure the moment you get the chance to kill us, you'll stab us all in the back...again."

"Not if you give me a reason to trust all of you," Elena said quietly. "Do you think I _liked_ stabbing you in the back, robbing you of the chance to go to your first dance? Do you think I enjoyed making you believe I was your friend, then watching you fall to the ground like it didn't mean a damn thing to me? I'm not that person, Rebekah. I don't want to be that person who has to kill to survive, but your family's existence means I _have _to live that way."

Rebekah didn't answer, and her eyes didn't quiet lose that sparkle of hatred she reserved just for her, but Elena could see she was processing her words. Maybe, just maybe, she could get Rebekah to stop her rampage for revenge, and that would be one less Original to worry about, but she wasn't going to hold her breath for that.

Instead, she chose to watch as Klaus, with an element of pain she hadn't seen on his face before, retrieved a dagger from his pocket, and slid it effortlessly into Elijah's chest, watching as his brother's face turned ash grey, his breathing coming out in short bursts before he collapsed on the ground.

"That ought to take care of him for now," Kol announced, bounding up to Rebekah.

She pulled a face.

"I don't like it. Are we going to keep him like that until Klaus figures out how to deal with the witches?"

"It's kept him quiet, hasn't it? I'm surprised we didn't think of that before."

"Kol," Rebekah began to chide, before shrugging away the words she wanted to say. "Doesn't really matter. There won't be a cure."

"We don't know that," Kol pointed out reasonably, something which surprised her. "We could still find a way to save him."

"Since when are you so optimistic?" she enquired sceptically, raising her eyebrows at him.

"I'm not optimistic, Beks. I just think we should reserve the pessimism for when it really is hopeless," Kol said, winking at her.

He briefly glanced at Elena, who'd been watching this conversation with a mixture of wariness and surprise, having never really seen the Originals interact with each other that much. She liked the fact they had each other's backs; it was something she could relate to, something she could admire about them, which was completely screwed up considering a part of her still wanted them dead and out of her life for good.

"See something you like?" Kol spoke, his tone filled with arrogance, a smirk curling his lips.

She flinched, still unwilling to forget how coarse and brutal he'd been in Denver, how he'd attacked Damon without even flinching, and she knew out of all the siblings of the Original Family, he was the one she feared most, mostly because she knew next to nothing about him.

"You can go if you want," Rebekah said to Elena, her tone cold, but for once there was no hostility on her face. "We can look after Elijah from here."

"What about - " Elena began, only to see that Klaus had already bent down to gently scoop Caroline in his arms, his eyes flashing meaningfully in Kol's direction.

"Now why do I never get to cart off the fair maiden?" Kol complained, only half-heartedly, as he walked over to where Elijah was, less gentle with his brother than perhaps was called for.

"I would drive you back only I've never driven a car before," Rebekah confessed. "When cars were around, women weren't allowed to learn to drive them, as I recall."

"But that didn't stop you climbing behind the wheel of a couple all the same," Klaus called, grinning as he walked off with Caroline in his arms, a sight which made Elena feel quite uncomfortable, and she stared after him, wondering whether she should've been making a move to help her friend.

"I was curious." Rebekah shrugged. "Sue me. The ones in the 1920s were far less cleverly built, but still fantastic little contraptions; I suspect I should learn one of these days, seeing how women are doing everything that men do these days."

"You love it, Beks," Kol grinned. "You were always pro-feminism anyway."

"And you were always a chauvinistic pig, so shut up," she retorted.

"If Caroline's car works, I'll drive that back," Elena said, somewhat lamely given the fact she still felt very uncomfortable and awkward in the company of these people. To Rebekah, she added, "Why are you being nice to me all of a sudden?"

Rebekah smiled icily.

"Because it takes a lot of energy to hate someone. Energy which could be put to better use, like saving my brother. I have a feeling you'll be around a lot more, and Nick probably would be opposed to me torturing you, so what other option do I have left but to play nice?"

Elena had to chuckle weakly at that. She slid into the front seat of the car, tried the engine, and then sighed when it didn't respond. Caroline had been complaining of car troubles recently, and she supposed this had been the straw which had broken the camel's back once and for all.

She decided she probably had no other option than to call Damon or Stefan, but she looked at the road she was on and realised the local garage, which was only down the road, would probably be open in a couple of hours, and the mechanics who worked there were reliable, so she would take Caroline's car there at first light. For now, it would have to stay there, so, with no other option, she decided to follow the Originals back to their house.

As she walked, Rebekah fell into step with her, and Elena became aware that for the first time in a while, Rebekah seemed to vaguely resemble that girl who'd stood in front of the mirror, nervously patting herself down hours before the dance was scheduled to begin, the girl she'd momentarily bonded with, right before she'd plunged a dagger into her back, and through her heart, and she regretted that, not just because of the chain of events which had followed that incident, but because she knew she'd deprived her of a dance, not to mention had betrayed her trust, which was probably the worst of the crimes, to be fair.

To a family whose history was steeped with blood and violence, she imagined betrayal was something they never took lightly at all, so she imagined how infuriated Rebekah must've been the moment the dagger had been removed from her back, and her memories had caught up with her.

A question suddenly popped to her lips, something which she tried to repress from saying but which escaped her all the same.

"What did you think of Tatia?"

Rebekah started at the question, her eyes flashing with irritation at the question (old habits, and all), but Elena knew she knew something, because a comment she'd made the first time they'd met had set her mind reeling.

_"So this is the latest doppelgänger," _she'd drawled, scrutinising Elena carefully, before spitefully adding, "_The original one was much prettier."_

"She was insanely beautiful," Rebekah said at last, having considered the question carefully. "But not being blinded by her beauty like both my brothers had been, I saw what neither of them couldn't until it was almost too late."

"Which was...?"

"She was manipulative," Rebekah said, almost reluctantly. "I think somewhere along the way in her life, she probably lost who she was, and found that since her pretty face could sway men to do whatever she pleased, that was how she could make her way in the world. Not that I blame her for _that_; over the centuries, I've done the same to get by. What I do blame her for is the fact she nearly destroyed our family. Since then there's been no love lost between me and anybody who shares her face." She flashed Elena a cruel smile. "No offence."

_Rebekah remembered the moment well. She'd been practising with a sword, much to Finn's consternation, and had been too absorbed in trying to master holding the sword in such a way that it could deliver fantastic strokes in the air, and so hadn't seen the new visitor arrive until a new voice pierced the air._

_"I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs Mikaelson."_

_"Please... call me Esther."_

_Peeping around the tree she'd been hiding behind, she'd dropped the sword quietly amongst the bushes, inwardly reminding herself to tell Elijah that that's where she'd left it, so he could retrieve it before their father found it and blamed Niklaus for leaving valuable weaponry around. She gazed at the new visitor Niklaus was showing their parents, and her first thought was one laden with extreme hostility._

But I'm the prettiest girl in our village. Father said so himself. How can she be even prettier than me? _she thought, bewildered by the new girl in every aspect._

_The new girl was extremely pretty. She had this long, rich, flowing hair, and this slender body which curved like a river, never failing to flatter the right places. Rebekah felt instant jealousy grip her hard, and she looked down at the sword, before looking back ahead, wondering whether she could manage to hold back this temper of hers before doing something incredibly stupid._

_Rebekah huffed to see Niklaus lay a hand around the new girl's waist. Niklaus was supposed to have eyes only for her! He wasn't supposed to go off and pay attention to prettier girls; he was supposed to continue to indulge her with his wild anecdotes and tall tales, supposed to teach her the lessons she wasn't supposed to have learned, all the while telling her secrets and sharing his troubles with her, and only her, and she was aware that made her sound spoilt and demanding, but that had been the way they'd always been, and now it was clear this new girl, with her too beautiful hair and her too perfect body, was going to ruin all that. _

_"My, my," came a quiet voice in her ear. "Either my eyes deceive me, or it appears our dear brother has found another maiden to loiter around. And you are jealous!"_

_She dug a sharp elbow into the ribs of her brother, Kol, who'd snuck up behind her, delight and mischief evident in his tone._

_"Mind your tongue, Kol. I can wield a sword now," she threatened._

_"And who taught you that, I wonder?" Kol asked, amused. "If you are not jealous, then why do you stare at the maiden with fire in your eyes?"_

_"If Nick wants a new maiden to charm, I care not," she declared, pushing past him to pick up the sword, walking briskly ahead, occasionally lashing out at the trees with it, watching with satisfaction as a shower of branches and leaves fell before her eyes._

_"Yes, I can see you care little for the matter at all," Kol remarked, standing by her side, watching the display with amusement. "He was the only one of us to give you so much as the time of day, Rebekah, of course you're bound to be upset that he has moved on to pastures greener."_

_She whirled around, fuming at his words._

_"Pastures greener?" she repeated furiously. "What, you think she's prettier than me as well?" She pointed the blade against his chest. "Mind repeating that _dear _brother?"_

_"Rebekah, put that away," came the dulcet tones of Finn, walking past, a dead animal in hand. "You shouldn't be wielding that."_

_"Why? Because I am a lady?" Rebekah mocked, stamping her foot. "Such words from a man who has to look away before striking with his sword because he hates the sight of blood so much."_

_Finn gave Kol an exasperated glance, presumably hoping for someone to back him up on his statement. _

_"I'm actually with her on this one," Kol remarked, unapologetic. "Sorry, brother."_

_Finn gave a grimace, but didn't comment further, merely carried on walking past them, heading in the direction of their home._

_"So... what do you make of this new maiden, if we can even call her that based on the stories I have heard?" Kol questioned, still grinned. "I hear it isn't just Niklaus with his eyes on her, but Elijah too."_

_"Elijah too?" Rebekah shook her head, scornful of that idea. "I can see Niklaus being foolish enough to dally with the affections of another, but not Elijah, who is far more sensible."_

_"I hear different," Kol teased, walking around her, his dark eyes glinting with mischief. "And you know I'm right about these things."_

_"I'm still holding a sword, Kol. You're not keeping to my good side at all at this precise moment."_

_Kol backed away, laughing, his hands outstretched._

_"Fair enough. Let us hope she lacks your fire and spirit, else we shall all be in for a world of trouble. One Rebekah in my life is quite enough, thank you."_

_And he ran, still laughing, before she could hurl the sword at him. _

Rebekah snapped back into the present, her lips pushed into a scowl. It still made her angry to think of Tatia, of how she'd swarmed in and stolen her two brothers just by looking ravishingly beautiful. No one had been able to deny the first Petrova's beauty, but what her family had never quite agreed upon was what she'd been like as a person.

Kol, who'd always been crude and opinionated, had believed her to be quite crafty a person, using one façade to ensnare the hearts of fools, and another to completely destroy them forever. He'd never really been taken in by her himself for that reason. Finn – and it still gave Rebekah a pang to think of her brother's death, regardless of the part he'd been prepared to play in the deaths of his family – had never really shown any interest at all, merely stating when conversing with her he'd always found her to be polite and charming, reserved perhaps, but still good-natured.

Sometimes she wondered whether part of the reason she'd found it so easy to hate Elena – aside from the obvious reason of course – was because she still had remnants of that jealousy she'd felt all those centuries ago. Even now, her brothers still seemed to be taken in by that Petrova charm and beauty, although they had very different reasons for being that way. Klaus' reasons were easy to understand; he needed her alive for hybrids, and that was the only reason he needed her alive, else (she suspected) he would've killed her a long time ago.

What was Elijah's reason though? Rebekah couldn't for the life of her fathom that little riddle out. Did he like her? Was he in love with her? What was the deal there exactly?

She hadn't decided, and she knew if – no, _when –_ her brother got past the worst of whatever this hocus pocus crap even was, then she knew she was going to have to suffer through even more of this Petrova madness, because although Elijah wasn't so much with the words when it came to his own emotions, she knew Elena was one of the few – perhaps only – humans he admired and respected.

She didn't know why, although perhaps her own prejudices clouded her judgement, because she certainly didn't want to see Elena in a good light at all.

And yet...

Damn it, the girl wasn't someone you could just formulate one opinion about and stick to. To give her her dues, Elena had taken the verbal and physical abuse Rebekah had doled out on her on the chin, not holding back on delivering a few home truths in the process, leading Rebekah to one conclusion.

She might not like the girl, but she would be damned if she didn't say she respected her a little.

….

Klaus hovered around his brother, his expression perturbed to say the least.

Daggering Elijah again, even for the purposes of keeping him from killing anyone, wasn't something he'd ever enjoyed doing. In fact, he resented himself every time he found himself coerced into daggering a member of his family. He wanted them, they just continued to put him in situations where he genuinely believed they didn't want him.

His eyes then fell onto Caroline, who he'd gently put down on the couch, one of her arms sprawled across her face like she was posing dramatically for a picture. With her sunshine blonde hair, and her flawless skin, and the light that just seemed to radiate from her, it wasn't hard to see why he was so attracted to her. The fact she resisted his attention only made him want her more.

"Well," Rebekah drawled, walking in next to Elena, "What now?"

"Dinner?" Kol proposed, again aiming this comment in Elena's direction, who made no disguise of her contempt for him.

Klaus had to smile at that. The fire of the Petrovas was something he'd always admired, even though truthfully it was probably that fire which had ruined him. Tatia's fire had (briefly) estranged him from his own brother; Katerina's fire had caused her to turn into a vampire, thus rendering her completely useless for the sacrifice ritual. He had yet to determine how Elena's fire could ruin him, but based on the way she'd been around Elijah, he could certainly hazard a guess.

"We get Bonnie," he replied, in a tone that gave no way for argument.

"No," Elena immediately responded, shaking her head vehemently.

"Why not, sweetheart? She's a witch, and this is kind of a witch related problem here," he pointed out.

"Because I'm not letting you drag more of my friends into this mess of yours," she retorted, her lips pressed into a stubborn line.

"Not letting me?" He had to laugh at that. "Oh, love. I admire your spirit, but the last person who was adamant on not letting me do something ended up dead."

"The death threats might be more effective if I didn't know you need me alive for your hybrid army," Elena threw back at him. "So your argument is invalid."

Klaus glanced over at Kol, who drew a scoreboard in the air before promptly drawing a single line on both sides of it, indicating a one-all score. He scowled, but made no attempt at reprimanding his brother (was there even any point?), merely allowed him to continue displaying his immaturity while he tried to think of how best to remedy the situation he was currently in.

"Fine," he relented, looking grim. "We won't retrieve Bonnie."

Elena gave a sigh of relief.

"Then what about - ?" Kol began, before Klaus ever so slowly inclined his head, his eyes slowly landing in Elena's direction, and it was a sign of perhaps how similar they thought that Kol was able to interpret exactly what it was his brother was saying, whilst at the same time having the common sense not to confirm it aloud.

"Perhaps the answers don't lie in this small town," Klaus mused, looking thoughtful. "Perhaps we should try elsewhere."

"Good point," Rebekah nodded, smiling tightly. "I've been waiting to get the hell out of this town since I got here."

Elena, sensing the Originals were reaching a decision that, one way or the other, looked set in removing them from her town (thank goodness), began to move, changing her mind about calling Damon and Stefan, so eager was she just to be at home, or, more importantly, in her bed.

She didn't see Kol moving towards her until it was too late, didn't understand what was happening until she felt something hard strike the back of her head. All she became aware of as her knees buckled, sending her falling to the ground, was that trusting the Originals not to pull off a kidnapping of some kind was like trusting Damon not to be impulsive, or trusting Stefan to be completely in control of blood all the time.

But before she fell, a pair of gentle hands cradled her head, preventing it from hitting the floor, and as she crumbled into darkness, she could've sworn she'd seen compassion in the very eyes which seemed to watch over her like a guardian of sorts.

Elena was beginning to think letting Klaus persuade her to help Elijah was one of the worst ideas ever to be conceived. She should've known from his obsessive behaviour that now he had her in his grasp, he wasn't ever going to let her go again.

One of these days, her too trusting nature was going to get her killed permanently.

* * *

**A/n: Thank you for all the positive feedback so far! Love hearing what you guys think. Hope you liked the Rebekah flashback here, because I imagine she would've been extremely jealous of Tatia given the fact she was quite close to her brothers. For the record, I love writing Kol. I hope I write him successfully, because it's hard to write him as serious given we've seen so many cheeky moments of him on the show. More flashbacks are on the way, and Elijah will be undaggered next chapter, in case any are wondering how long he will remain that way. :) Hope you guys like this chapter. It's been my favourite to write so far. :)**


	8. Madness

Battered Souls

….

~Chapter 8

Madness

….

Summary: When a mysterious illness strikes Elijah, causing him to confuse Elena with former love Tatia, the whole Original family band together with Elena to try and save his life. Elena/Elijah, with a good dose of the Original family as a side dish ;) A fic that plays havoc with canon – in this story, Alaric didn't complete the transition, so is dead for all intents and purposes (sorry readers) – and is set just after the dance in 3x20.

….

In his own mind, Elijah was tormented by flashes of the past.

_"Elijah..."_

He could still hear the innocence in her voice, could still see the deep blush gathering in her cheeks as they lay underneath the stars, in a manner deemed far from appropriate for that time. Even in semi-death, he could still tell the difference between reality and fantasy, although that line was slowly blurring as his condition continued to steadily decline.

_"Elijah..."_

Inside his own mind, he saw her, still as beautiful as the day he'd met her. She wore a long flowing dress, beige in colour, as she'd always preferred colours which complemented nature, in some way, which hugged her body and just stopped short of her ankles. Her hair was plaited down the back, but left some flowing by the sides of her face, and she kept tugging at various strands, biting the inside of her cheek shyly, her eyes glowing with affection.

_"How are you here?" _he wondered, knowing without even being aware of anything else that this was entirely impossible.

Tatia was dead, and the only possible scenario to explain this exquisite vision was that he was close to death too. But, his mind reasoned, had this been a visit from an angel of mercy, he suspected he'd rather have seen her as Elena, without a doubt the purest of the Petrova line.

_"I'm here to pass along a message from your mother," _Tatia spoke, her voice higher than normal. _"She's so sorry for what she must do, but the nature of what you are – what my blood made you become – is something she must rectify."_

_"No," _he growled, defiant as ever. _"My mother forgets the nature of diplomacy. She would poison an entire village, just to rid it of one diseased individual, such is the way her twisted mind works. I refuse to let her win."_

Tatia looked downcast, her eyes pooling with bitter-sweet tears.

_"Then it is to be a death sentence after all. A slow and cruel one. The spell she has cast upon you is a wicked one, to be sure. It'll turn you into the very monster you claim not to be. It'll make you kill those you profess to love, and poison the very heart I once held a claim to." _

_"I don't understand the purpose of your visit." _He was adamant there was a purpose to this vision, some ulterior motive he was yet to understand. _"Why are you here?"_

_"I came to be with you. Is that not enough of a reason?" _

_"It would be, if I knew your heart was reserved solely for me. You let my brother corrupt you, and he himself became corrupted into the monster he is today."_

_"But you love him all the same,"_ she pointed out. _"Just as you still love me."_

_"Whatever I felt for you, it no longer remains in existence. You – and Katerina – taught me a harsh lesson regarding matters of the heart. I don't trust anymore; not without reason."_

_"It is a sad way to live, Elijah."_

_"True," _he agreed amicably. _"But one I've found most agreeable all the same."_

_"You were many things, Elijah, but never cruel," _she spoke, her eyes flashing with a spark he vaguely recognised. _"We shared something special."_

_"And that is exactly why I'm able to tell this isn't you speaking," _he retorted coldly. _"Mother, for once, discard with your apparitions. I know it's you."_

The image of Tatia soon dissolved into ripples, leaving behind the cold, impressive stature of his own mother, who regarded him solemnly, her chin raised defiantly, and he knew he was going to hear another chorus of _I Must Kill My Children To Save The World_, and he lacked the patience for that.

_"Mother."_

_"Elijah. My son." _How could such words be draped in such coldness? _"I'm here to give you a warning; I thought coming from an entirely different source might get you to accept it, but it appears not."_

_"I had hoped death would have stemmed your desires to end the lives of your own children, but apparently not." _

_"You know I'm not doing this out of callousness, Elijah. I simply - "_

_" - have to rid the world of all vampires. I get it." _He didn't at all, because like everything, evil was not categorised into black and white, nor was it specific to vampires. Humans were capable of committing such dreadful acts themselves, yet he didn't see the witches trying to end their miserable lives. _"You know my siblings won't let you get away with this."_

_"I know. I have forever estranged myself to them." _She sounded anything but regretful. _"I am a witch, Elijah, a servant of nature. In one moment of weakness, I allowed myself to create a line of abominable creatures, and that in turn has led to the greatest – and longest – massacre throughout history. Innocent lives have been uprooted and turned apart because of what my impulsive act did. I cannot let future generations be scarred by what I created."_

His eyes flashed with pain; despite the fact he now loathed his mother with his entire being, it still pained him to learn she was responsible for his decline in health, and that she was still hell-bent on the demise of her own children.

_"Then for as long as I shall live, I vow to oppose you," _he declared vehemently. _"You forget, like humans, not all vampires are corrupted by their very nature. Some choose to fight what they are, and thrive on their surviving humanity. Would you destroy them just to save a species which, quite frankly, have committed acts far more atrocious than the crimes vampires have, for reasons far more trivial than ours?"_

_"It is not the point..."_

_"Not the point! Then, what is? You claim to have watched for centuries as our kind attacked the helpless, and preyed on the vulnerable. I have brushed up on my history, witnessed many historical events for myself, and I can say without a trace of bias within my mind or my heart, if we are to judge an entire race of creatures based on how they treat their inferiors, then by your own words, you should destroy the entire human race too. Witches – barring the odd few – would be the only race left, going by your twisted logic, and what use would they be with nothing to protect?"_

_"I'm sorry, my son." _Esther sounded anything but sorry, which made his blood boil. _"I had no part in the creation of humans. But vampires are my responsibility, my mistake, and I intend to rectify it."_

_"By poisoning me?"_ He became extremely sarcastic now. _"How does that achieve your end goal exactly? I imagine it's a drawn out plan, without a time limit, because the rate I'm passing, I will be dead later rather than sooner."_

_"You are my test, Elijah. It's a difficult spell. It aims to poison your blood stream, to the extent that if you feed, that blood you feed upon will also be poison. The spell will also increase your thirst, so that the more you feed, the more poison you ingest, and the quicker your death will be. In effect - and rather ironically - what you need to do to survive will be what leads to your death."_

_"Thank heavens for that. I feared this was going to be a painful process." _Again, his voice was thick with sarcasm. _"And the hallucinations? My seeing Tatia everywhere? How does one explain that exactly?"_

_"Delusions," _Esther explains, without a trace of warmth in her voice. _"Merely delusions, playing upon thoughts your mind has already hosted. You've been thinking about her a lot – more so than perhaps even you realised – and so everything you've been seeing – everything you've felt – is enhanced by what your body is going through."_

He shook his head, determined to ignore that last remark by his mother.

Tatia hadn't crossed his mind in years – no, scratch that, _centuries. _Even when Klaus had oh-so-carelessly brought her name up in conversation at the dinner party with the Salvatores, he'd taken great care not to dwell on her name, making sure no images of her doe-like eyes had come crawling across his mind, because that had always been the thing he'd loved most about her – her eyes.

Tatia had always managed to convey whatever she'd truly felt with her eyes, whether that had been confusion, anger, sadness etc. Katerina hadn't been much different, at first, but she'd taken great care to curb her emotions, aware even at the age he'd met her that showing one's emotions to the world often meant being met with indifference, possibly scorn, because the world had been much crueller when they'd met, as hard to believe as it sounded.

Elena was quite a different creature altogether. She was hard to read at times, and her eyes didn't give much away except in the heat of such scorchingly obvious emotions, like anger or grief. He found he liked that about her, because the less he knew about her, the more he strove to find out. He'd picked up little titbits during his absences from Mystic Falls, but only facts, like how her parents had died, or the names of her best friends. He hadn't procured a lot of information about her that could've been regarded as personal, and maybe that was the key difference which separated her from her doppelgängers.

With Tatia and Katerina, there hadn't been a lot to know, but perhaps due to the nature of this particular century, there was a lot to know about Elena, ranging from her favourite lesson in school (never an issue with Katerina and Tatia, for obvious reasons), to her favourite style of music (somehow, he had her pegged down as someone who talked about the latest style of pop music, but secretly listened to old age bands, simply because she struck him as someone who lived both in the now and the past, who thrived on modern technology, at the same time lamenting the loss of the ways of the old, but maybe that was just what he wanted to see in her).

He never even saw his mother disappear as he contemplated the various Petrova women in turn, and he was pulled sharply back to the present by a searing pain in his chest, which forced his eyes open, and his body to jolt upwards, the sound of something metallic falling to the ground with a large clanking sound.

He glanced down, surprised (to say the least) at witnessing a dagger below him, yet there was no one around him who could've pulled it out.

Elijah was more shocked, however, to realise there was a moment of clarity hovering around him, and he had a moment's respite from the pain to digest everything he remembered happening.

He remembered Kol and Klaus attacking him, but nothing before that. He assumed they'd been restraining him somehow, because he certainly remembered feeling aggressive and _thirsty_, in a way he'd never felt before. Regarding blood-lust, he'd always managed to restrain himself, never killing anybody unless they'd ticked him off in some way – and this wasn't reserved for petty little things, but the stone cold betrayals he'd always loathed, which had reminded him of how easy it was for someone to abuse the trust you put in them – but it hadn't always been so easy for him.

Back in the day, when he'd been fairly new as a vampire, he'd remembered slaughtering several (innocent) villagers simply because they'd looked at him the wrong way, or because they'd had the misfortune of showing an openly bleeding wound in front of him.

His father and mother had been horrified at what they'd essentially forced upon their children, but he'd felt the remorse before any of his siblings. He'd felt it stronger, because as a human compassion had been his biggest quality (and flaw, when it had come to Tatia), and so he'd felt it tenfold after turning. He remembered often just curling up in the woods after a kill, his knees drawn to his chest, his eyes just staring ahead, and it had always been Klaus who'd found him.

_"Come brother," _he'd remarked, somewhat jovially. _"Why dwell on what we cannot change. We should embrace this gift we've been given."_

To which, Elijah remembered responding, "_It is not a gift, Niklaus, it is a curse. And a curse, funnily enough, tends to bring more misery and misfortune, than anything of a positive nature. Forgive me then if I do not rejoice about our new ability at delivering death to the people we grew up alongside."_

Over the years, he'd developed an immunity against the remorse, and there had been certain years where he'd even enjoyed the new life, but the old adage _what goes up must surely come down _certainly mirrored his own life. For every gift vampires were blessed with – the speed, the strength, the immortality – there was an equal and opposite drawback, to the point where being a vampire actually became an inconvenience.

The sounds of voices from nearby caught his attention. He heard Rebekah and Kol arguing – nothing new there – their banter whipped up to such a frenzy, he feared they might just actually rip each other to shreds.

He listened for Klaus – for any clue as to why he was here, stuck in a dimly lit basement, surrounded by empty caskets (presumably for emergency situations which, in Klaus' case, would include one or more members of his family pissing him off to such an extent that daggering them was the only suitable punishment available) – but to no avail.

Impatient for action, Elijah rose to his feet, uneasy at how suddenly okay he felt. There was a faint throbbing in his throat, which he knew only blood would cure – but his mother's somewhat veiled warning had strangely shook him up – and he felt sullied by the effects of his illness. He felt dirty, and wondered if where he was being kept had access to a shower of some description.

He wasn't stupid enough to believe where he was now was in the vicinity of Mystic Falls at all. No, his siblings would've moved him somewhere else, somewhere that wasn't a small town which would notice if the death toll rose within a short space of time (so optimistic, his siblings seemed to be, he thought sarcastically, that in his fragile state he wouldn't go out and slaughter the nearest village just because he lacked the control he normally possessed).

Then he heard something that made his eyebrows sky-rocket into his hair.

A heartbeat; stronger than he'd ever heard one before, with each beat pumping harder than before to counter the fear it had to battle against.

And then there was the smell of blood which sent his entire nervous system into a quiet frenzy.

Elijah knew then the illness hadn't retracted at all.

It had simply manifested itself another way.

Through his _hunger._

….

She stirred, her head throbbing.

Elena opened one eye, assessing just from moving slightly that she'd been placed on a very uncomfortable couch, which was becoming a habit of hers by now – that, and being kidnapped, of course.

Looking around, she could see she was in a similar style of building that Rose and Trevor had held her in. Opposite her, she saw a huge marble fireplace, which boasted of grandeur but sadly wasn't supported by the rest of the house, which seemed to simply speak of levels of basic architecture.

The floor was wooden, but the dusty grey sort that seemed to take a little imprint of every shoe which stepped across it, meaning there were dirty marks along it. Casting her gaze upwards, she saw one lone chandelier above her head – gathering dust, by the look of things – which swung somewhat precariously, like it was about to fall at any given moment.

Pushing herself upwards, Elena saw the room she was in was probably the equivalent to a living room, although the irony there was that it looked like it had been abandoned to die, due to the amount of dust and cobwebs she could see glistening from the few artefacts in the room itself.

"Relax," purred a familiar voice. "I know this is hardly the Hilton Hotel, but it'll do for a hideout until the dust settles back home."

She glared at Kol, who looked like he'd just come from a party, so wild did his hair look, and there was that self-satisfied smile glued to his face, although he wore that all the time anyway, so that shouldn't have surprised her.

"You knocked me out," she said flatly.

"Had to be done. You wouldn't have agreed to us taking you out of town otherwise," Kol remarked, too amused by the situation for her liking. "Plus you're my brother's most valuable asset right now - "

"Which brother?" she remarked ironically, earning her a genuine laugh from Kol's lips.

"Oh, you do possess a humorous bone in your body," he said, sounding gleeful. "Rebekah made you out to be a dull... I'll replace the word she actually used here with the word _kitten_... she made you out to be a dull _kitten_, and I think she made a comment about your hair, although I generally tend to fade out when my sister starts ranting about someone who's vexed her."

"I can imagine." Elena rose steadily to her feet, still clutching her hand to her hair. "Where are we?"

"Somewhere..." Kol smiled mysteriously. "I can give you no clues, in case you go running off. Let's just say we're a good few hours from Mystic Falls, so I'd put escaping out of your head at once."

She scowled at him.

"Where's your brother?"

"Which one?" he quoted back at her, smirking. "You'll have to be more specific."

"Klaus," she fired back.

"Out," Kol replied, deliberately nondescript as to his whereabouts.

She snorted.

"How specific. And I suppose you won't let me go until I help your brother, even though I'm not magical by any means. Is that how this works?"

"Hey, I'm not running the show here." Kol held out his hands. "I'm just enforcing the rules." He grinned. "And having enormous fun into the bargain."

"Pig," she muttered darkly.

"You are quite entertaining, aren't you?" His dark eyes shone with mischief. "And here I thought you were going to be another Tatia, but I can certainly see the fascination with you."

Her eyes shot up at the mention of Tatia.

"What did you think of Tatia?" she asked, cautious as ever.

"A bore," Kol remarked lazily. "Oh she was pretty enough, but she was hardly exciting. Hardly a challenge. I just think she knew how to be in the company of Klaus and Elijah."

"Did you ever meet Katherine?"

"Nope." Kol popped the 'p' on the word, and, to her discomfort, came to sit next to her. "But I hear she led my brothers on a merry chase. Seems like they simply do not learn when it comes to you Petrova women."

"I may be a Petrova biologically, but on paper I'm still a Gilbert," she remarked coldly. "So stop acting like we're all the same."

"I do apologise." Kol continued grinning like an idiot, like he wasn't tormenting her to the point of insanity. "I've been asked by my brother – Klaus, in case you're wondering – to let you phone your friends." He handed her a phone. "Apparently, they've worked themselves into quite the frenzy just worrying about you."

She looked at him, accepting the phone warily.

"And what am I supposed to tell them exactly?"

"That you're okay, and we're being the perfect hosts." Kol chuckled at that. "But above all else, if you want to escape this situation relatively unscathed, I suggest you warn them against trying to find you. Beg, plead, cry. Use whatever trick you like to get your point across. Just make sure they get the message."

She was interrupted from her snarky comeback by the ringing of the phone in her hands. Glancing down at the number, she sighed in relief that it was Stefan, who was much more likely to be diplomatic about the situation.

"Hello?" she answered.

_"Elena? Oh thank God. Where are you? How did you get Klaus' phone?"_

"Never mind that," she said hurriedly. "You need to stop searching for me, Stefan. You and Damon and Bonnie, and whoever else you've dragged into helping you."

_"Wait...what?"_

"Please, Stefan," she begged. "I'm safe. I couldn't tell you where I am even if I knew, but you have to believe I'm okay. Just let me handle this."

She could hear murmuring in the background – someone did not sound happy - and then the phone was passed to Damon.

_"Elena, are you insane? We need to get you outta there right now."_

"Really? Is that what _needs _to happen?" She couldn't help being sarcastic right now; it was down to the stress. "Damon, I'm fine. They're not hurting me."

_"Not even Rebekah, the psycho bitch? I doubt that. And don't forget Klaus needs your blood to make hybrids, or are you happy to be his blood bag for the rest of your life?"_

She flinched.

"I can hold my own, Damon. If they do something I don't like, I'll tell them. I might be just a human, and unable to match them in strength, but I'm not going to be abused by them. I'm stronger than that." She directed this towards Kol, who gave a twisted smile at that. "Trust me."

_"Oh I trust you. Just not them."_

Her tone softened somewhat.

"Charging recklessly after them will solve nothing, Damon. You'll just get yourself killed."

_"So? Some causes are worth dying for."_

She let that hang for a moment, unsure how to proceed.

"If you care about me, Damon, then let me do this. I won't be kidnapped forever, and if I have to, I'll kick up a fuss if they refuse to let me go back."

_"But - "_

"Take care, Damon."

She hung up, feeling emotionally drained by that short conversation.

How was it Damon could come across as a raging psychopath one moment, and then the next leave her with a comment so unbelievable, it actually had the power to halt her heart for just a moment?

She handed the phone back to Kol.

"There," she said, somewhat savagely. "I've done what you asked."

"Nicely done," he said appreciatively. "I couldn't have done much better myself."

She eyed him suspiciously.

"You probably would've snapped his neck, stopped him coming after me that way."

"True," he agreed. "The old methods _are _the best."

They were interrupted by the sound of the something smashing, both simultaneously rising to their feet as Elijah, of all people, came blurring into view, dragging a barely conscious blonde girl by the hair, her face chalk white, a large gash trawling across her neck, bleeding profusely.

"Elijah - " Kol sounded profusely concerned, confused even. "How are - ?"

"How am I without a dagger plunged into my chest?" Elijah mocked, gesturing openly to his chest. "I don't know. I just know I encountered Esther in a dream, and then woke up to the sound of _her _heart beating." He pointed savagely to Elena. "And I found I was _starving." _

Elena was frightened by Elijah's façade, the way his usually buttoned up shirt was torn in patches, a few buttons missing here and there, his suit jacket missing. She noticed the wild look in his eyes, how his pupils seemed to spin like miniature globes, hovering around every little object in the entire room, and took a step back, swallowing loudly, suddenly aware of the fragility of the situation.

To her surprise, Kol stepped in front of her, almost protectively, although she knew his reasons for doing so were not selfless.

"Where did you get the girl from, brother?" he asked Elijah, his tone even, remarkably calm, given the situation.

"She was hovering outside." Elijah gave a wild laugh, running his one free hand through his hair. "I just – I took one look at her, and I just needed to feed! Do you know how long it's been since I've fed this way, Kol? Grabbing every frightened human off the street, just so I can get my fix of blood? Just so I can feel the _blood_ pouring down my _throat_!"

"Take it easy, Elijah..."

"Take it easy!" Elijah near enough shrieked, lifting back his head so he could sharply plunge his teeth into the girl's neck, who awoke fitfully, her entire body thrashing around.

"Stop!" Elena growled, racing forward to help the girl, but found herself on the receiving end of a backhanded slap which sent her sprawling across the floor.

Stunned, she clutched her cheek, unable to think, or _breathe_, barely noticing Kol launching forward to wrestle his brother, the two of them snapping and snarling at each other like wild animals.

She just felt herself feeling bewildered by the role reversal, by how Kol was the one leaping to defend her, and Elijah was the one attacking without remorse. Her breathing pattern became erratic, and she found there was another reason entirely for feeling as horrified as she did.

She never believed in a million years Elijah could turn on her like that.

It made her feel cold, her insides shaking like jelly.

As the battle between brothers raged on, her eyes found Elijah's during the scrap, something in them managing to halt him long enough for Kol to get a good grip on his neck, before making a violent snapping motion, his face slightly paler than normal as he watched his brother collapse to the ground.

Ignoring the fact he'd just hit her, Elena raced forward, turning him over, checking him like she was a nurse, aware something about his demeanour had changed, because he was still caught in the grips of something supernatural, yet he seemed to possess a kind of clarity, a self-awareness which hadn't existed before.

She let her hands rest against his skin, and before she knew it, her head had dropped to his chest, though she couldn't figure out why she'd done that. She already knew there wasn't going to be a heartbeat to find, so the gesture had to be done purely as a source of comfort – or a way to find it, one of the two.

"I'll take care of my brother," Kol's unusually detached voice said, causing her to lift her head up to look at him. "There's a bathroom up the stairs if you want to take the girl to get cleaned up." And, as an afterthought he added, "You look like hell too, so I'd suggest getting cleaned up too."

She nodded numbly, grabbing the sobbing girl – Alice, she managed to learn her name was – and pulling her in the direction Kol had pointed out to them, acutely aware that once upon a time, she'd been Alice. She'd reacted to all this vampire crap in the same way, so could sympathise completely with the way Alice was reacting to this. Elijah hadn't even compelled her either.

She knew now that she had to help Elijah no matter what it took.

Nothing, to her, seemed more in dire need of help, than a man of noble stature fallen from grace.

Besides, Elijah had found a way to save her once, when all other ways had seemed to be either impossible, or out of the question, and though she'd never gotten round to learning whether or not his method would've worked, she'd appreciated the effort all the same.

He admired her for qualities he once possessed, he'd told her once. Well, she admired him for qualities she knew he would always have, and she knew helping him was her way of making up for lying to him at the ball, and almost getting him killed.

She had absolutely no way of knowing in that moment, her efforts in helping Elijah would cost her something dearly, nor could she have foreseen the blood that would be spilt in the upcoming war between the Originals and their (dead, but very much lingering in the afterlife) mother.

* * *

**A/n:** **Yay, some Kol/Elena interaction. I wasn't sure about this chapter, particularly the beginning but I think I've foreshadowed quite nicely some events that will come up soon. Esther's interaction with Elijah was, in a way, her way of trying to justify why she's targeting him this way, but there is something she left out to do with the spell she's using, and we'll learn about that in upcoming chapters. From here on in, this fic is going to get darker and darker, because I really didn't want to do an Elijah/Elena fic that was all lovey dovey all the way through. Prepare for some intense moments ahead, and Damon and Stefan probably will make an appearance at some point, because they cannot leave Elena alone lol :P but I haven't figured out where they'll make that appearance, so for now enjoy lots of Original/Elena moments!**


	9. Darkness

Battered Souls

….

~Chapter 9

Darkness

….

Summary: When a mysterious illness strikes Elijah, causing him to confuse Elena with former love Tatia, the whole Original family band together with Elena to try and save his life. Elena/Elijah, with a good dose of the Original family as a side dish ;) A fic that plays havoc with canon – in this story, Alaric didn't complete the transition, so is dead for all intents and purposes (sorry readers) – and is set just after the dance in 3x20.

….

She stared at herself in the mirror, at those blank orbs which had once been able to charm anybody into doing whatever it was she needed done. Her eyes, famous for not revealing her true intentions at any given moment, right now lacked life, and maybe that was down to exhaustion, but perhaps, more precisely, it was down to a sense of helplessness.

For the first time in a while, Elena Gilbert realised how useless she was. Bonnie possessed magic, Caroline was stronger, more empowered as an individual, and even Matt was handy with a crossbow when the occasion called for it. What had she ever done to contribute anything to any of the missions they'd embarked on? She'd tried hard not to be the damsel in distress, but most times that's exactly how she ended up. It wasn't for lack of trying either, but nine times out of ten, her plans – which always were on the ambitious side of things, she'd admit – ended in failure, and tragedy.

Sometimes she hated her own face, at the trouble it'd brought her.

Mostly, though, she longed to do something, to help in some way so that no one could accuse her of being utterly useless. She didn't want to be a vampire to do that though; she still saw the merits in being human. Matt was human, and he'd taken down an Original, so why couldn't she do something heroic like that? Not for the glory, but just so she could say she'd stepped up to the mark when her moment had come.

The girl, Alice, hadn't given her much opportunity to help her before she'd taken off, sobbing and screaming, clearly in hysterics, and though Elena had tried to intervene as best she could, it hadn't taken long for Kol to get irritated, blurring up the stairs to snap her neck, looking utterly remorseless as he'd taken in her shocked expression, merely expressing in a single shrug that that was the way his family dealt with matters like that, and that she should be grateful he hadn't prolonged the death.

Now, Elena was staring into a mirror, after briefly splashing cold water on her face to try and bring herself part way to life again. She could see the lines under her eyes from the lack of sleep, not to mention the still present blotches on her cheeks from the stress and the grief she'd been trying to balance. It was fair to say, she'd been more than her fair share of tragedy and drama, so how she still managed to retain the image of a healthy (and happy) teenage girl was beyond her.

After brief deliberation – during which the thought of escaping had crept into her mind, but only for the briefest of moments – she headed down the stairs, sneezing as the simple motion of walking awoke a cloud of dust.

Downstairs, just below her, she could hear Rebekah and Kol arguing. She thought about walking down, making her entrance known, but she couldn't help pausing, her hand tapping the banister awkwardly, the tone of both siblings matched in ferocity, and she quickly deduced what it was they were fighting about.

_" - idiot! _Why did you break his neck? He's going to be twice as angry as he was before you messed everything up!"

"And what was I supposed to do, huh? Let him kill her?"

"I don't know, Kol! I just pictured there being a brain underneath that mop of hair you love so much!"

"Oh, grow up, Rebekah! I did what I had to. You didn't object when Klaus stuck a dagger in his heart...again!"

"Because – Oh, forget it. We can't keep 'killing' Elijah just until we find ways of dealing with him. There has to be a better way of solving this."

"When you come up with a solution, do tell. Until then, I shall be divulging myself with a few necks in town. Watch the girl, and try not to break her. She's rather fun."

"Only because you know she pisses me off."

"Well, there's that," Kol agreed, his eyes twinkling. "And then there's the fact, she possesses quite a lot of...spunk. I think we can agree with the fact she's a damn sight feistier than Tatia."

"But not as pretty," Rebekah shot back.

Elena felt herself stiffen at the cheap shot aimed at her; she hadn't expected Rebekah's feelings towards her to have changed after their civil moment, but she didn't know her back was still being used as target practice for cheap, pathetic shots about trivial topics such as her appearance.

She turned on her heels, decidedly too miffed to head downstairs. Getting between a bitch-fight between Kol and Rebekah didn't exactly look like a sane plan right now, so she took the time to figure out where she was.

Right now, she stood in the middle of a corridor, which, apart from a deep red rug carpeting the floor, seemed pretty bare. The wallpaper was chipped, and faded in places, but she could tell it hovered between hues yellow and gold, not quite bold enough to be the former, but certainly too dark to be the latter.

She ran a hand down the wall, wondering what had made the Originals choose this building as their destination to hold her captive. It certainly looked as though it had come from an era they'd all been a part of, but what the story behind this place even was remained a mystery.

Maybe there was no story to it; maybe they'd just stumbled upon a deserted building and had claimed it as their own. Yeah, that seemed a likelier scenario...at least, until her eyes fell upon the painting at the very end of the hallway.

It portrayed a pale faced young woman, whose blonde hair cascaded down her back, one particular strand falling just shy of her face. The lips of the young woman had been painted this very striking red in colour – subtlety, then, was not what the artist behind this masterpiece had gone for – and though it was a portrait, it only showed her head and shoulders.

That wasn't what struck Elena about the painting though. It was blatantly clear this was Rebekah; she recognised the fire in the eyes, the slight curve to the lips, like she was smirking, and the difference in height between her eyebrows – one raised, the other lowered, almost touching her eye - like she was permanently judging the person viewing the painting. The artist responsible had certainly done well to capture the strongest traits of his subject quite vividly.

No, what struck her about the painting was who had painted it. It was in the corner, tucked away like a dirty little secret, but all the same there it was, the flourish of a signature by one Niklaus Mikaelson.

_Klaus._

"Not one of my brother's finer pieces," came the soft, strong tones of the female Original, whose sudden appearance made Elena flinch. "I preferred the one he painted of me under the Paris sky. _That _was breathtaking. Showcased my beauty more."

Elena knew she would never get used to the lightning speed at which vampires could appear and disappear.

"Your brother is an artist?"

She was immensely confused about that. Somehow, in between the violent rages and sacrifice rituals he spent centuries planning, she never pictured Klaus having another hobby, something that didn't involve the spilling of innocent blood, or any sort of violence whatsoever. It painted a quite different picture of Klaus, to imagine him by a canvas, brush in hand, as he carefully – perhaps meticulously – created a world with just a select few colours.

It should've perhaps startled her to learn about this other side of Klaus, but it disturbed her, because she was starting to view him in a human light, which was the exact opposite of what she intended to do.

Start to humanise Klaus, and that meant on some level accepting the amount of grief and tragedy he'd brought into her life, and she was not okay with that all. She still hurt from Jenna's death, still felt angry that he'd turned Tyler into his hybrid minion – failing, overall, thanks to Caroline's dad, which Klaus still didn't know – and so she found herself glaring at this visual representation of his humanity, hating it with an intensity she'd forgotten she could feel due to the fact certain events lately had caused her to feel numb, emotionally drained.

"He dabbles," Rebekah spoke, answering her question in a bored tone. "One of his exhibitions hangs in a famous museum, somewhere. I didn't get the name."

"You don't sound very enthusiastic about it," Elena noted, with a hint of criticism in her voice.

"When you spend a thousand years on this earth, you soon realise there are better things to be enthusiastic about than your brother's skill in drawing," Rebekah responded, with a derisive toss of her head.

"Why is this here?" Elena asked, motioning to the painting. "Did you guys live here?"

"Once." Rebekah suddenly seemed uncertain, less arrogant in her demeanour. "There's an irony in coming here again. We lived here for a short time, during which I was witness to the most horrific fight our family has been through. My brother – Nick – he was...adamant – stubborn, even – about finding a way of breaking his stupid curse. He'd heard rumours that there was a way possible, but none of us were supportive. Finn scolded Nick for being too selfish, and Nick just... exploded. Enter dagger number one." She made a motion to demonstrate, all the while trying to act like saying the name of her dead brother didn't affect her, when the flash of pain in her eyes gave her game away. "Kol was angry. I guess Finn and Kol were closest, mostly because Finn was the only one who could keep Kol in check." She sighed, pursuing her lips. "After Nick stuck a dagger in Finn, Kol vowed that if he ever did the same to him, he would beat him senseless and rip out his heart. And Nick knew he meant it, because what Kol lacks in the brains department," here she rolled her eyes, "he makes up for in brutal strength. He's the only one who can match Nick strength for strength, and they both know it."

"So that's why they act so..." Elena struggled to find the right word, "..._tense _around each other? Klaus is afraid of Kol?"

"My brother isn't afraid of anyone," Rebekah announced, drawing her chest up, a note of sheer pride audible in her voice. "But, yes, I suppose it's more prudent to be warier of your own family than of your own enemy. In the case of mine, you never knew which one was going to be daggered next." She smiled ironically. "Still don't, to be honest."

Elena eyed her dubiously.

"And you're okay with Klaus wielding that kind of control over your lives?"

"You forget, Elena, that you speak with a tongue dangerously close to becoming one dripping with hypocrisy," Rebekah said, her eyes flashing with borderline irritation. "You let the Salvatores dictate your life, and how best to keep it going, and whilst I admire their persistence in pursuing an invariably lost cause," she flashed her a taunting smile, "I wouldn't put up with it myself."

"Really?" Elena gave her a cold look. "I'm getting relationship advice from a woman who lets her heart rule her head? Face it, Rebekah, you enjoy taunting me about Stefan and Damon, but you still love Stefan. I heard about your days in Chicago together, so I know how much it hurts for him to be in love with someone else. You pretend you're this tough woman – and maybe in some ways you - but deep down you know you're just a girl, and you recklessly and hopelessly pursue any scrap of attention and affection you get, because you don't want to spend eternity alone. None of you do. That's why you do the things you do, because though your acts are horrific, and your crimes numerous, at the end of the day, you're just as human as the rest of us. But you hide it better."

Rebekah closed her eyes, and Elena thought for one moment she'd gone too far. Rebekah was unpredictable at the best of times, and she probably still harboured that ongoing grudge against her for stabbing her in the back (literally), so she braced herself for an attack, only to find her fears had been in vain.

"I do love Stefan," Rebekah admitted. "You forget I was daggered in the 20s, with my feelings for Stefan all locked up with me in my coffin. When Nick woke me up, I still felt all those feelings for him. They never went away. So, yes, you could say I've been irked by you even before I laid eyes on you. You have a claim on Stefan I can never have, and for that I will always loathe you."

She eyed the painting, something close to nostalgia dawning in the corners of her eyes. Elena could tell despite what she'd said before, Rebekah really did admire her brother's skill. She loved Klaus, and always would.

"You know what the worst thing about having to endure my brothers fight amongst themselves?" Rebekah suddenly murmured, turning to Elena, a flash of vulnerability visible on her face. "Having to spend centuries afterwards knowing nothing would ever be the same again. The trust was gone. Even now, Kol trusts only himself, and he resents me and Elijah for siding with Nick."

She went vacant for a moment, almost as if she'd disappeared into the memories she'd shared with Elena, and then slowly came back to the present.

Then, as if suddenly aware she'd shown too much emotion, let down her guard too much in front of a human she was far from fond of, Rebekah let out a sharp, irritated hiss and disappeared in a blur, leaving Elena to wonder whether she and Rebekah were so different after all.

…

He heard his bones crack into life before he felt it.

Stiff as a board, his neck sore as anything, Elijah found himself back where he'd woken up – in a dark room, which he was only beginning to realise the significance of now.

It was almost poetic, the way he kept ending up in this room, the room where that particular fight had taken place. He remembered the anger on Klaus' face as he'd realised Finn was not only opposed to him finding a way to breaking his curse, but that he actively resented him for being that selfish.

It was funny, Elijah thought to himself wryly, in one of his rare moments of clarity, but Finn had always seen something dark in Klaus, even before the startling truth about Klaus' real parentage had come tumbling to the surface. Finn had never felt entirely comfortable around Klaus, and growing up he'd always found reasons not to hang around him too long.

It was no wonder then, that Klaus had hardly grieved over Finn after his death. Klaus hadn't really expressed any affection towards his siblings in a long time, save, perhaps, for Rebekah, who'd always been his favourite.

Not that Elijah had minded at all.

Life, after all, was not to be spent brooding on petty little matters.

He suddenly froze as the events preceding his "death" caught up with him. He remembered that poor girl, remembered her screams as he'd plunged his teeth into her neck, mercilessly draining her. It all came back in one intangible blur, each memory pounding into his head, causing him to wince at the pressure.

And then he remembered something else; something which made his blood run cold.

He'd hit Elena.

An uncharacteristic groan escaped his lips, as his head fell into his hands. Shame flushed his cheeks; self-loathing became the strongest emotion running through his body. Suddenly, he could understand why his mother wanted to exterminate vampires. When they couldn't control their impulses, monstrous did seem to be the only term available to describe them.

He hurried to the door, flinging it open, only to be met by Kol.

"Well, I must say, you're anything but dull," he said, grinning, but the grin felt too forced.

"Kol." Elijah inclined his head, ashamed. "I do apologise for my behaviour."

"Don't be. Our mother is to be held responsible for all of this." Kol grimaced. "I think – and don't you dare repeat this, because I will deny it – Niklaus was right in murdering her. It isn't right what she's doing."

"Isn't it?" Elijah leaned against the wall, suddenly tired. "I think we've outstayed our welcome on this earth, Kol. I don't disparage the notion that mother exterminating vampires is an atrocious idea, but can we really blame her? Look at the damage we've done over the years, let alone other vampires."

"Don't suddenly turn all noble, Elijah," Kol sneered. "We're just as entitled to walk this earth as the rest of the pathetic creatures on this earth are."

"Are we?" Elijah felt a faint pain emerge in his head, but he ignored it, simultaneously managing to ignore the sudden swell of blood-lust which was now lingering in the back of his throat (and now mind as well). "If the actions – and our intents – are what justifies whether we live or die, I think we would've been exterminated a long time ago."

Kol shook his head, unimpressed.

"Being around humans has made you soft, Elijah."

"Being around _her _has," he countered, not even needing to deliver a name to emphasise who'd changed his perspective on life the most.

"You know she's Klaus' prize. I doubt he'll appreciate you trying to take it off him."

"She's not an _object, _Kol. She's a human. Unless you have a severe case of selective memory, you were once the same."

Kol shrugged.

"She has a spark of something, and it is rather enjoyable watching her interact with our Rebekah, but she's nothing more than the latest in a pointless bloodline, consisting of very beautiful, but dull women. If the stories I've heard about Katerina are true, I'd wager she's the most interesting of the Petrova line."

Elijah pressed his mouth into a firm line.

"It's not a competition, Kol."

"Might as well be." Kol folded his arms. "Now you are to stay here like a good little boy. You are not well - "

"Don't patronise me," Elijah snapped. "I am not myself, that is true, but I am in control right now."

"Which is all the more reason to keep you monitored closely," Kol iterated firmly. "You flipped out big time a few hours ago. You kidnapped a girl, fed on her, hit your precious doppelgänger in the _face, _and overall created _quite _a scandal. I'd be impressed if I weren't so damn concerned for you."

"Save your concern." Elijah suddenly noted the state of his suit, frowning. "What happened to my clothes?"

"I can only assume you had a fight with yourself, and lost," Kol said, smirking. "I can fetch you another suit, if you'd like. I know the type you like – designer, expensive, and tasteful."

"I could fetch one myself," Elijah suggested, making a move towards the door, only to find Kol continued to block it.

"Uh-uh." He wagged a finger, looking mock disapproving. "Klaus is out looking for a way to save your life. Let's just wait here until we get news, shall we? Let's not do anything hasty."

"This coming from a man who, in the throes of a childhood battle with a neighbouring village, saw fit to attack a member of his own team, without even waiting for the game to start!"

Kol grinned.

"Good times. Finn nursed a black eye for weeks afterwards. Mind you, he was such a dull person, I think that black eye actually boosted his popularity."

"Finn is dead. Mind your tongue," Elijah said sharply. "Show some respect for the dead; God knows you possess so little for the living, after all."

"Fine." Kol backed away, his hands spread out in a defensive position, still grinning as though he found this all so amusing. "I'm a scoundrel; a black hearted rogue who thinks only of himself. If you don't believe my being here is solely out of brotherly concern for you, that I've a selfish agenda here, then how about the fact I'd rather your _antics _didn't draw attention to us all – especially me. I don't care if you think you're as fit as a fiddle, I have my orders from Klaus."

"Since when do you pay the blindest bit of notice to what Klaus has to say?" Elijah asked, frowning. "You haven't trusted him since he daggered Finn; in fact, you've gone out of your way to make his life a living hell."

Kol's arrogant smirk faded from his mouth as he considered the question. He chewed his bottom lip, the pros and cons of revealing the true answer to Elijah's question clearly being weighed up in his mind. As much as Kol hated appearing weak, and sentimental, he also despised lying too, although he still did that on occasion, if it fit in with his agenda somehow.

"Since Finn died, it's kind of – well, you guys are all I have," he said roughly, as if making the words sound as bitter as they could would somehow diminish their sentimentality. "He was the dullest of characters, Finn, but he helped me hunt, though he despised the very sport of it, and he was always good at telling stories." He gave a half-hearted shrug. "We all thought we were invincible until Finn died. Being reminded that we're not just made me think about things, about who I should really be at mad." He cracked his knuckles threateningly. "If we return to that wretched Mystic Falls, I swear that jock who escorted Rebekah to the ball will meet his demise."

"No he won't, Kol," Elijah snapped, but the force of his reply was softened somewhat by Kol's confession. "If history teaches us anything, it's that the grudges we bear leads to terrible consequences. The Salvatores, and all who stand beside them, were defending their town from us. Can we really blame them for that?"

"Yes," Kol muttered sullenly, but said no more on the subject.

The two of them suddenly looked up at the sound of a crashing noise. Ignoring the fact he was supposed to be preventing his brother from escaping, Kol gave Elijah a grim look, and the two of them raced up back to the main room, where chaos seemed to reign.

Rebekah was clutching her head, letting out a high pitched scream of rage, while Elena, who'd obviously ran down from the stairs to investigate what was going on, lay unconscious at the bottom of the stairs, blood seeping from a nasty looking gash from her forehead.

Kol looked ahead, snarling at the sight of two olive skinned individuals – one, a woman with dark waves of hair cascading down her back, dressed in tight jeans and a black jacket, and the second a man, clad in leather, his eyes a frighteningly dark shade of brown in colour – bearing down upon his sister, but his eyes couldn't help observing Elijah, who was staring at Elena, at the blood pooling around her, a familiar look of primal hunger dawning in his eyes.

"No," Kol muttered darkly, unsure what to do first – rescue his sister, or stop his brother from making a monumental mistake which would cost them all dear.

As he made his decision, however, the female witch stepped forward, her hand outstretched, giving him a clear warning.

"We work on behalf of Esther," she told him. "It is our duty not to let you intervene with her grand plan."

Kol let out an incoherent hissing sound, a few cursive words thrown in, but just as he tried to blur away, he too was brought to his knees by an intense pain shooting through his head.

"The doppelgänger's blood is the most potent," the warlock muttered to his companion. "The need for her blood will drive him wild."

"Wild enough to want more," the woman agreed. "And the more he gets - "

" - the more the poison will spread," he finished, nodding grimly.

"Who – are – you?" Kol managed to get out, before he crumpled into a ball, exhausted by the fight he was having to put up with to try and alleviate the pain.

"Relations to the Martin witches, who we are grieved to learn are no longer alive," the warlock answered. "I answer to the name Marcellus, and this is my sister, Imelda." She gave a cold nod, in response to his acknowledgement of her. "On your mother's orders, we were sent here to carry out her work, since she can no longer do it herself."

Elijah, who'd been surveying Elena with a stare that would mostly be associated with that of a predator, tore his gaze away, regarding the witches with bewilderment. But rather than questioning them, he kept gazing at the blood around Elena's head, and that primal urge to rip and kill and maim and injure just resurface.

He felt every noble part of him wilt and disappear, like the petals on a dying flower, leaving nothing behind but the basic structure of what he was first and foremost – a vampire.

And all of a sudden, the witches were inside his head; two distinct voices, each telling him to succumb to his basic urges.

_Satisfy the craving, Elijah, _came the female's voice, strong and clear. _If you don't, your nature will destroy you._

Then came the man's voice, soft and commanding. _You've spent a long time being noble, Elijah. A long time upholding all the morals very few humans seem to understand, and we commend you for that. But you need to feed. Right now. _

His first thought was that the witches telling him to feed was perhaps the most out of character action he could've dreamt up. Witches valued all life – except for the vampires, naturally – and their job was to protect the innocent, protect the balance of nature, and that careful analysis of what was going on halted him just enough to let doubt creep into his mind.

He remembered what his mother said, which gave him extra ground to stand on, and he inhaled and exhaled a few times, trying to breathe clarity into his mind, which seemed to be tinged with darkness. Let that darkness in, and all was lost. _He _was lost.

Then Elena did the worst possible thing she could've done in that moment, and stirred.

As her body gently rolled to one side, it sent her scent – more potent than any other scent he'd ever come across – directly into his nostrils. He stiffened, his back straightening, and his eyes flashed with hunger. She opened her eyes, mumbled something incoherent, and then she saw him.

He felt the veins around his eyes stand to attention like soldiers; his body, sensing it was about to get what it was clearly craving, began to prepare itself, with his fangs slowly sliding into view, and his lips drawing back to give the aforementioned fangs enough access to do their job.

He saw the confusion in her eyes, saw the blood pool to her cheeks, giving colour to her milk white skin, and before she could scramble to defend herself in any way, he'd raced forwards, lost in a haze he couldn't make sense of.

He heard the scream, felt a part of him roar with agony and fury at what he was doing, but it was too late. The moment he managed to taste even a hint of Elena's blood, something inside him snapped; a switch flicked off; everything changed.

Even as he saw the witches disappear, satisfied with their work, he was still lost in that haze. Even as Klaus came through the doors, his jaw dropping at the scene before him, and as he felt himself being wrestled off Elena, he actually smiled, his eyes gazing at the ceiling, a tapestry of a violent past woven before his eyes.

Tatia had been just a memory; Katerina, a dream; Elena, a mere hope. All three of them had done their part in shaping who he was, and all that seemed to disappear in a snap, the moment he'd tasted Elena's blood.

As he felt the familiar piercing of a sharp object lodged against his heart, Elijah let go of everything that he was, everything he'd strived to be, and delivered himself into a new memory, one that didn't quite exist, but which added another layer to a pre-existing one.

It was in the meadow, where he and Tatia had talked long and hard into the night about their hopes and dreams, and right where he should've been, there was empty space. She stood before him, still clad in the clothes he knew from memory, her eyes still as beautiful as fallen stars, but her lips were pressed together, showing her fear.

_"Elijah... what have you done?" _she questioned, her hands outstretched, as if imploring him to see reason.

He smiled cruelly.

_"I've realised what a folly it was to have entertained the notion I needed a woman to make me all I can be," _he bragged, chest outstretched. _"The poisonous lies you and your descendants have fed me no longer matter. You cease to be of any importance to me anymore."_

She was silent for a moment, taking him in with her eyes, and he could see this was no trick of Esther's. This was real.

_She _was real.

_"You know your mother is using you as a pawn to end the entire vampire race," _she said slowly.

_"And you were what, genuinely taken with me as opposed to using me for your emotional needs?" _he scoffed. _"You accuse my mother of a crime not too dissimilar to what you have committed. How can I believe a word that comes out of your mouth, Tatia? You possess the beauty of a goddess, but the heart of a serpent."_

_"Your mother has corrupted everything you hold dear, Elijah! You find doubt where others find faith; you find deceit in truth; you see ugliness, where there's beauty! In truth, Elijah, your mother has turned you into a monster!" _Tatia cried, shaking her hair at him, looking anguished and infuriated. _"She seeks to use you – her own son – as a means to an end. Does that not bother you at all?"_

Elijah did not answer; he didn't need to. She saw the lack of warmth on his face, and that was enough of an answer.

_"So, what is your mother's plan now that her son has turned bad?" _Her tone contained nothing but scorn over that fact. _"How does she plan to use that new black heart of yours as a means of exterminating the entire vampire race?"_

_"Now that would be telling, wouldn't it?" _Elijah smiled. _"She's in my head you know. Not possessing me – not her style – but I can feel her listening to my every waking thought. Every time I have been daggered, lingering in between worlds as it were, she's been there, promising me redemption if I follow her wishes."_

_"And that is why it is dangerous for you to let her in, Elijah. The more you let her corrupt your thoughts, the more you lose yourself." _Her eyes swam with tears. "_If you do not believe I loved you – and I did, more than I can ever say – can you at least believe I cared enough to come back to try and save you?"_

_"Save me?"_

_"When souls try and move between worlds, it's dangerous. The fact you're dead right now – or at least, trapped inside your own mind – presents me the opportunity to come and talk with you. It's like a stepping stone across a river, or a bridge between two worlds. But I cannot talk with you long. Even amongst the dead, there's dark magic here, and it prevents me from being with you, from saying what I need to say."_

_"I've heard enough," _he retorted dismissively. _"Why should I listen to another word you have to say, Tatia? You destroyed my family. It was your blood – and the deal you made with my mother – which made us monsters. Anything you say on the matter, therefore, is invalid as an argument."_

She lowered her eyes, and something glistened in her eyes, making him believe she was crying. Then, however, she raised her head, and he realised he was merely seeing the gleam in her eyes, not tears, and that determined spark he'd always loved about her seemed more alive in her than every before, the irony being of course that she was dead, so possessing it served no greater purpose.

Something stirred inside him then, and he realised it was the faint remnants of the love he'd held for her. How and why they stirred right now, when they'd been dormant for centuries, confused him, but he hid the confusion behind a mask of bitterness and anger.

_"So if it was I that destroyed your heart, and Katerina, your trust, what crime has Elena committed that justifies you succumbing to the poison which slowly spreads across your heart?" _Tatia asked quietly.

Elijah couldn't answer.

Because there was a part of him that knew what he was doing – allowing the lies his mother believed in to fester inside him, stewing with the blood lust so that they became one and the same consuming emotion – but that part was slowly dying, corrupted by the darker parts, and finally he seemed to know that his mother's end game regarding him had never been about slowly killing him.

She'd used his compassion – his humanity – and turned it into something darker, something unfathomably cruel and unforgiving.

But just as that realisation dawned upon him, something dark swept between him and Tatia, causing her to disappear with a shocked scream, and all he became aware of was this growing hunger, this _need _to kill and slaughter and destroy, but this time, he knew he had a specific target in mind.

_Elena. _

For she wasn't just a human, but a doppelgänger; the vital asset needed to produce an army of invincible hybrids and release them onto the world; a girl whose blood was probably the most potent blood for any spell; a girl whose ancestry had left perhaps a darker stain on the history books than any of his family had (not that she knew about that part of her own history, that there was more than just Katerina and Isobel who'd tangled with vampires before).

And the affection he felt for her simply drained away, as if a hand had reached into his heart, pulled out the plug, and allowed all the goodness stored there to just drift away.

And when his eyes snapped open, the dagger once again removed, his eyes – a shade darker than normal – he felt sudden clarity dawn on him, and he suddenly knew what he had to do next.

* * *

**A/n: And thus the chapters become darker and darker. :P I warned you they'd get darker, but don't worry – unlike the darker!Alaric, Elijah isn't beyond saving. Next chapter we're going to learn what Klaus has learned, and we haven't seen the last of the witches either. And in case this chapter wasn't clear about Esther's endgame plan – aside from destroying all vampires of course – it's using Elijah to destroy anything and everything that could count as a supernatural threat to humans before eventually ending the Originals themselves, starting with the one thing which could cultivate a new species altogether... And I think we all know what that is...or **_**who **_**that is, should I say. Thanks for reviewing! I am aware this is my longest chapter yet lol, and I can imagine there will be even longer chapters to come :) **


	10. Surrender

Battered Souls

….

~Chapter 10

Surrender

….

Summary: When a mysterious illness strikes Elijah, causing him to confuse Elena with former love Tatia, the whole Original family band together with Elena to try and save his life. Elena/Elijah, with a good dose of the Original family as a side dish ;) A fic that plays havoc with canon – in this story, Alaric didn't complete the transition, so is dead for all intents and purposes (sorry readers) – and is set just after the dance in 3x20.

….

Elena kept a cold, damp towel pressed against her wound, every part of her still on edge from what had just happened. Her eyes flickered from one Original to the next, noticing how each of them wore the same wary expression, Rebekah just managing to look that much angrier than her other siblings. Kol and Klaus seemed to share a look, but what that look said exactly, she couldn't say.

The silence dragged on for longer than was necessary. Nobody had asked if she was okay, or offered to help heal her in any way, but she hadn't expected them to. This was an entirely different ball game she was in the middle of, with a different set of dynamics to play with here, and she knew she wasn't going to get any preferential treatment here. In fact, ironically enough, it was Klaus, and his stupid dream of having a hybrid army at his command, that kept her alive right now, because she suspected the moment she ceased to be of any use, Rebekah and Kol wouldn't hesitate to end her life if necessary.

"I want to go home," she said, trying to summon enough strength to give that statement conviction.

"Oh, here we go." Rebekah rolled her eyes. "I guess because it's _you _we should automatically bend to your will. Isn't that how it works back home?"

Elena glared at her, unable to summon the strength to deal with Rebekah, who seemed to be hot one moment, and cold the next, like a malfunctioning tap. She was beginning to think the Originals weren't evil after all; merely bitter, twisted individuals, with severe family issues, and the same desire to shut out their humanity to avoid appearing weak, when really, their humanity showed much more often than they believed.

"I'm not safe here," she said, appealing to Klaus here. "Not with the way Elijah's acting. You saw him. He's not himself. He _attacked _me, and probably would've killed me if you hadn't come in when you had. If you let me go home, I'll be safer."

"What? So your boyfriends can attack me the moment we show up for taking you away in the first place? Not likely," Klaus scoffed, but despite his obvious concern, she saw some of what she was saying had registered with him.

"We'll keep you from dying, if that's your main concern," Rebekah snorted. "I mean, I'm sure the Save Elena Club has more than enough members already, but, well, a few more can't hurt, right?"

"You know, this bitch act is really not impressing me," Elena shot at her. "Hate me all you want, but that won't stop me from being who I am. And I did regret daggering you in the back, but maybe I should get a little less grief from the same person who, over the years, has probably done a number of incredibly cruel things to stay alive, and to protect the people she loves, because that was all I was doing. Trying to protect my town. My friends."

Klaus had to chuckle at that.

"And a fine job you all did," he remarked sarcastically. "Releasing my mother? I have to give you credit. In that one act, your friends managed to unleash more chaos and trouble than _I _did."

She gave a low growl under her breath, still feeling so weak and shaky from the attack. She just didn't have the strength to argue back with people who were hypocrites, above everything else. They'd stabbed each other multiple times in the heat of the moment, and murdered countless people to achieve their own goals, but god forbid anybody else try and do the same in the name of self-preservation.

Just when she'd started to see _something _human in them, down fell that particular house of cards, leaving her with that same sense of loathing she'd always had for them.

"Maybe your pet doppelgänger is right, Nick," Kol put in, looking uncharacteristically perturbed. "What are we going to do, just sit around and wait for Elijah to next jump her? Personally, me and Rebekah have no trouble letting her die, but it's you that claims to need her alive in case playing happy families goes sour for you..."

"Your tongue seems to be cursed, Kol; it seems to insist on letting idiotic remarks slip off it," Klaus snapped, rubbing his forehead, his eyes growing darker as he steadily grew more irritable. "If I knew what to do, don't you think I'd already be doing it?"

"What did you learn from your witch, Nick?" Rebekah put in, suddenly losing her sour look in place of a worried one. "Is there _anything _we can do?"

"Aside from putting him out of his misery? No." Klaus gave her a weary look. "All my witch could tell me was that whatever is happening to Elijah, it'll get steadily more worse. Something is poisoning his mind, and that's the most dangerous thing to be corrupted when essentially all we depend on for control is our mind. If he loses independent thought entirely, than what mother will have created is something akin to what father was. A dark, evil, narcissistic vampire who is impossible to kill."

The room absorbed this in silence. Elena felt herself drift in and out of the moment, the amount of blood she'd lost, and the head wound she'd acquired after being attacked, both contributing to the fact she now felt really unwell, but there was no point in addressing that at all. She was unlikely to get any sympathy here, not with what was going on with Elijah, and she tried to focus her attention on that, even though a part of her had been actually horrified to see Elijah's vampire face, which was so different from his normal, composed expression.

Rebekah and Kol exchanged looks, digesting Klaus' gloomy news with resigned – and heartbroken, particularly on Rebekah's part – expressions on their faces. Elena almost felt sorry for them, because losing someone you loved, particularly when their loss hadn't even happened yet, but was an inevitable event, was always so painful, and she knew her heart hadn't quite been equipped to lose as many people as it had, but it had the ability to rebuild itself, and that was what kept her surviving for so long.

"So that's it then. We just...put him out of his misery?" Rebekah looked disgusted by that option. "You'll fight heaven and hell to protect your _precious _doppelgänger, but when it comes to your own brother, you'll blindly take the word of a witch – and they all want us dead, that's why I don't trust any of them – and believe the only way to save him is by putting him out of his misery." She shook her head. "That's why you've destroyed this family, Nick. You were always so good at ripping us apart, but never as good at fixing your mistakes."

She strode to the door, but Klaus blocked her, his eyes flashing with anger.

"You think I want him dead?" he hissed. "You think I _liked _daggering you all, and putting you into coffins? If I wanted you gone, I would've dropped your damn coffins in the ocean, but I kept you all safe. I kept you around wherever I went. I told you, Rebekah – I wanted a family, they just didn't want me."

"Oh, what a load of crap," she sneered. "You can't really spin us that same sob story anymore, Klaus. We get you hated the way you were treated by our parents. All I wanted in my entire damn life was to have a normal life, with my family, but even when we were all together again, united to protect each other, everything just went to hell!"

"Because of mother!" Klaus roared. "She was the one who turned us into who we were!"

"And why?" Rebekah roared back, jabbing him in the chest. "Because you took Henrik to see the wolves turn, and got him _killed_! You ignited the war between the wolves and the vampires and made mother realise she had to protect us somehow!"

Klaus reeled back like he'd been slapped.

"So it's my fault," he remarked coldly. "You think it's my fault."

Rebekah immediately faltered, and it was clear she had spewed off all these venomous words in the heat of the moment.

"I didn't mean - " she began, but the damage was done.

"Maybe I _should_ take Elena home," Klaus interrupted, his eyes devoid of any emotion. "Give us both breathing space."

"Nick, I - "

But before she could get another word out, Klaus had grabbed Elena's arm, ignored her wince of pain, and dragged her out of the door. She could tell what Rebekah had said had hit a nerve judging by the fact he seemed none too concerned with treating her as gently as perhaps he had in the past, and even then that hadn't been out of any sort of affection for her but out of his own selfish desire to create hybrids, which her blood happened to be the key needed to make them.

She hated the fact everybody needed something from her, and it was getting to the point where every little thing just made her angry, so yes, in some ways she could relate to the mood Klaus was in right now, which was perhaps why she wasn't kicking up as big a fuss as she would've liked to. But right now, with the hurt lines clearly visible along his forehead, she figured maybe the real reason behind her letting him drag her along like a doll was the fact she'd been on the receiving end of some harsh words from Jeremy before, and the incident she was thinking of in question pre-dated the whole 'You can go to hell' line he'd spewed at her after finding out she'd lied to him about Vicki.

No. It was after their parents had died, and she'd been in hospital, being checked up on for any other injuries besides the ones she'd sustained in the crash itself, and he'd stalked in, tears storming down his cheeks, looking at her like he'd never seen her before. At first, she'd put it down to the shock, because he'd opened and closed his mouth like a fish, his breathing coming out in short, sharp bursts, and then after a pregnant pause, he'd unleashed the cruellest line he'd ever come out with.

"God, Elena! Why'd you have to bail on family night huh?" he'd snarled, looking both resentful and devastated. "You always screw _everything _up. It's because of you they're dead! They wouldn't have been where they were if you hadn't been - "

He'd been escorted out of the hospital promptly before he could finish this hateful speech, and sometime after she'd been released back home he'd mumbled an apology in her direction, but things had never quite been the same after that. He'd said things she had been thinking about herself, and so to have it confirmed by her own brother just made her break down. Those first few weeks after their parents' deaths, she'd been a ghost, barely living, barely reacting to anything going on around her.

So, yes, she could very well relate to Klaus right now, although that didn't make her feel any sympathy towards him, given his bloody history.

With a very rough manner, Klaus shoved her into the passenger seat of his car, and shoved himself into the driver's seat, not even starting the car straight away, simply staring ahead, his eyes acting like headlights, so intense were they in colour and brightness.

"I'm sorry there's nothing you can do to save Elijah," Elena said eventually, feeling like she had to break the angry silence somehow.

"Oh, I didn't say there wasn't anything to be done about Elijah," Klaus snarled, starting the engine furiously, driving the car with an almost reckless speed out of the driveway of the house he'd taken her to. "I just didn't think my siblings would care particularly for the method in bringing Elijah back from the brink of madness."

She stared.

"If there's a way of helping him, they would do anything to save him," she argued fiercely, knowing that much to be true of Rebekah and Kol. "Did you deliberately pick a fight to avoid telling them?"

Klaus gave her a sidelong glance, but didn't respond. Not at first anyway, so intensely did he stare at the road as they drove along it.

"We're not heading back to Mystic Falls at all are we?" Elena guessed, leaning back in her chair, looking resigned.

"No."

"Are you even going to tell me where you're dragging me off to next?" she asked, glaring at him. "Do I even have a choice in the matter?"

"You're the doppelgänger," he remarked idly, with almost a hint of amusement woven into his cold tone. "You weren't exactly born into a life where choices are at your disposal."

"You're pathetic," she remarked, not even bothering to hide the hostility in her tone.

"How so?"

"Because you lied to your siblings, and you took away their hope," she said, shaking her head, looking disgusted. "And you deliberately wound them up so that it would make it easier to leave. Why?"

He didn't answer, but the ice cold façade thawed just a little.

"Rebekah was always my favourite of my siblings," he said, in a tone that suggested he'd drifted into the realms of time and space. "And I was hers. She believed in me, stuck by me even when no one else did, and the only thing which came between us happened to be on Stefan Salvatore, who I would've killed had he not been such an intriguing character to know. But Elijah came a close second. He's far nobler than any of us can ever hope to be, and I admire that about him. Kol might have you believe we're all as cold hearted and bloodthirsty as each other, but Elijah is of a different calibre together." He glanced at her. "To answer your question about where we're going, we're heading to a witch who says she knows a way to stop what my mother started."

"How?"

Klaus gave her a wry smile.

"You asked me why I would rile my siblings up to make it easier to leave. The answer to that question is that I will not be coming back."

She stared.

"What do you mean by that?" she demanded, confused by the simultaneous thrills and chills which ran through her body at the sound of his ominous words.

"It means if we cannot get Esther's poisonous magic out of Elijah, then we need to at least have a vessel to contain it, before exterminating it altogether, thus rendering my mother's last hold on my family useless."

Elena couldn't stop the gasp that followed.

"So this is a suicide mission then," she realised. "To save your own brother."

Klaus didn't respond, but his eyes narrowed somewhat as he slowly increased the speed he was driving at.

He hadn't done much to prove he needed his family as much as they – allegedly – needed him, but he knew he had to began repairing some of the damage he'd caused, starting with saving his brother's life. This had all begun when he'd tore their mother's heart through her chest, and it had to end in a similarly gruesome fashion, only without a physical manifestation of his mother to cope with, he had to make do with duelling her inside the mind.

_It's me you want, you cold-hearted she-devil, _he thought, his anger driving him into speeding up the car. _I'm the black sheep of the family, am I not? _

He could cope with whatever she might throw at him, a hell of a lot better than Elijah ever could which was his main – practical – reason for wanting to do this for his brother. A thousand odd years walking on this earth, making enemies everywhere he turned, and never once coming even close to death had to count for something, right?

But deep down inside, he knew his reasons for wanting to aid his brother went much deeper than anyone could ever know. It was easier being a vampire to pretend the human memories didn't still matter, that they didn't have as much of a hold on him as they would've done had he still been human.

But they still mattered, even after everything.

They still mattered so much.

….

_There was a particularly violent thunderstorm that felt like it shook the very heavens themselves. Even those claimed to be indifferent to religion crossed themselves as they glanced at the sky, which seemed to resemble the shades of a violent bruise. _

_The rain lashed down like a whip, and in the midst of it, ran two teenagers, who hurtled through the woods surrounding their home in order to get to shelter. Niklaus, who'd always been speedier, weaved in and out of the trees with an impressive skill, but Elijah, who'd always been swifter with a sword, kept stopping and starting, yelling angrily ahead when Niklaus failed to slow down._

_"Brother!" he called, cursing as he tripped, just managing to regain his feet in time. "Slow yourself."_

_"Why? So you can catch up?" Niklaus' tone was mocking. "Brother, even if I slowed to match the pace a tree grows at, you still would not find the speed to match mine."_

_Elijah scowled, pushing his ever growing hair – which was now soaking wet, thanks to the weather – and tried to speed up, slowing down again at the sound of a particularly disconcerting patch of thunder._

_"We must take shelter somewhere else," he roared at his brother's back. "The rate this storm is growing, we shan't make it back before the worst hits."_

_"Nonsense," Niklaus called back, turning around, his arms outspread. "This right here, Elijah, is freedom. Why should I hurry back? Might as well prolong the inevitable blows father will deal us when we return. You know how he hates us dallying for too long."_

_"Storms kill, brother," Elijah spoke through gritted teeth. "Why do you relish your impulsive nature? It will surely get you killed, and _I _shall have to be the one to explain it to our family."_

_Niklaus merely grinned, clapping his brother on the back as he finally caught up to him, the two of them now matching pace as they continued walking. _

_"You worry too much, brother," Niklaus commented. _

_"And you worry too little," Elijah threw back at him, though the comment was made in a light hearted manner. "We are a good pair. One to balance out the other. Just like Finn's docile ways balance out Kol's fiery spirit."_

_"Now we just need to find someone with no temper to balance out our Rebekah," Niklaus joked, and the pair of them laughed._

_A loud rumble, and a sharp flash of lightning, suddenly caught their attention, the sound of something burning and snapping remarkably close to where they were standing. As one, wearing wary expressions, the two of them quickened their pace, this time Niklaus keeping himself close to his brother. _

_When Elijah suddenly stopped, his head darting around, convinced he heard a loud creaking noise, like the sound of wood splitting in half, Niklaus barrelled ahead, and it was only due to fast reflexes that Elijah found himself both spotting the danger, and running forward to push his brother out of the way, as a tree, which had bore the brunt of the storm, started to plunge towards the earth._

_"Run!" Elijah bellowed, managing to get Niklaus, who'd been parallel to the tree, and would've been crushed had he'd continued being in the position he was, further ahead, and the dive he made to do so meant although he missed the bulk of the tree falling down on him, one of the heavy branches struck his shoulder as it came down, knocking him to the ground, the side of his face scraping against the ground, coating it with mud and twigs, and god only knew what else._

_"Elijah!" Niklaus roared, spinning around, running towards his brother, his face stricken. _

_"Tis but a scratch," Elijah assured him, although the pain shooting through his body certainly told a different story._

_"You're wounded." Niklaus, unbelievably, looked stricken, which wasn't an emotion which crossed his face much these days, given the fact their father liked to beat any signs of weakness out of him. "This is my fault."_

_"Well, that is a given," Elijah grumbled, trying to insert some humour into the situation. "But let us not forget how prone I am to committing acts of stupid heroism."_

_Niklaus didn't raise a smile._

_"We must get you home at once," he said, but he seemed in no hurry to do so, and Elijah knew why._

_Their father had always placed a lot of responsibility on Niklaus' shoulders. A lot more than was necessary considering he wasn't the eldest. Nobody could understand why Mikael seemed to loathe Niklaus, but it was evident in the way he treated him, the way he looked at him, so any little infliction that was cast on the family in some way, automatically Niklaus was given the blame. _

_Elijah had stuck up for his brother on more than one occasion – they all had, even Finn, who was less than close with Niklaus, for reasons unknown to all of them – but it hadn't made a bit of difference. You couldn't change someone's opinion, not when that person was someone so set in his ways, there was no thawing out his cold exterior. _

_Elijah tried standing, but he felt dizzy. The pain in his shoulder was intense, and it felt like his arm attached to that particular shoulder was too loose, but he kept a brave face on, and allowed Niklaus to wrap an arm around him, the two of them staggering through the woods, even as the storm raged on._

_"He'll blame me for this," Niklaus remarked, his tone flat, his eyes sparkling with traces of guilt. "And on this occasion, he will be right."_

_Elijah shook his head._

_"I will accept the blame. I will say we were being foolish, dallying on the way home instead of rushing back – which is true - and that you saved me when I became too reckless."_

_Niklaus snorted._

_"He will not believe that at all. But I appreciate the effort, brother. But you really try and accept too much of my own misgivings. I am impulsive, reckless... And one day that will cost someone I love too much." He gave the sky a sour look. "I am sorry. I wish I could do something heroic to save you, but I fear that occasion will never arise."_

_"You do something heroic every day, brother, just by being who you are," Elijah tried to comfort his brother. "The fact you have not bent your will to become what father wants you to be is admirable. You are the strongest person I know. Do not undermine yourself."_

_Niklaus still looked miserable, but as he gazed at his brother, his lips twitched upwards for half a second, as they tried to resume their pace to battle through the slowly dying storm. _

….

Elijah had managed to sneak out from under his siblings' noses, and the first port of call was to get a new suit. He'd found the nearest town, paid for a new suit, and managed to get himself looking respectable again.

The thirst for blood – specifically _hers –_ raged in his body, but now he had a mission to fulfil, he was a lot more under control. The illness, he'd learned during those moments when he'd been daggered, had been a way of weakening him, to allow his mother access to his mind, and now she'd firmly planted herself there, he could no longer remember why he'd resisted her control.

All her reasons made perfect sense; of course obliterating the entire vampire race was the most logical choice left to them. They were all monsters, and hadn't these past few months taught him that monsters needed to be slaughtered before they could corrupt and prey upon the entire world?

Elena was the first death he needed to handle. She was Klaus' way of making hybrids, and her doppelgänger blood meant she was a perfect tool for any species, if used in the right way. But since she and Klaus were on their way to Mystic Falls – he'd heard his siblings pathetically squabble about her fate, and their own – he knew he had to be crafty.

Smoothing down the creases of his suit, he looked at himself in the mirror. He felt a shift in his personality; what had troubled him before no longer seemed to bother him. He knew he was a monster, and battling to avoid facing that truth seemed futile now. But all the same, he could feel something scratching at the corners of his mind. Something was putting up a hell of a fight there, and though it was easy to block it out, he felt like it was just a temporary measure, that sooner or later the dam would burst, and whatever he was blocking out would just rise up and consume him.

But, really, he was stronger than all of this.

What would the demise of one more Petrova really mean anyway? Katerina's survival was merely a technicality, a result of a ridiculous stunt which had set forth a chain of events no one could possibly have predicted. Tatia's demise had shaken him, understandably, and had taught him a few things about trust, and who not to hand that particular item out to.

Elena's demise was an inevitability, an unfortunate curse that came with wearing the face she had. Getting attached to her had, regrettably, dulled his senses, and had poisoned him in ways only deep affection could. He had to cut that out before it consumed him, which, luckily, was an easy task, due to his new state of being.

He smiled detachedly.

Not caring seemed to have its benefits. He could focus on the task at hand, and not have these idiotic emotions clouding everything up. There was no pang in his heart at the chaos his siblings were causing, no deep flush of affection for a certain doe-eyed brunette with a smile as big as her heart, and certainly no rage for his mother and what she was planning.

He retrieved his phone from his pocket, aware he wasn't keen on this side of the plan at all, but it was necessary, he dialled a number, waiting for the person on the other end to answer before informing them on the new set of circumstances.

"Ah, Damon, I'm glad I caught hold of you. My brother and Elena are allegedly on their way to Mystic Falls... I say allegedly, because I suspect he may have been lying, but you never know. I need you to be on the lookout for their return." There was a pause. "Yes, I am aware you don't owe me anything, but this is for Elena's safety, I assure you. I never wanted her taken out of there." Another pause followed. "Yes, I'm on the mend, thank you for the enquiry... Yes, I'm aware you didn't ask, but I could sense your tone – you were curious. For all your flaws, Damon, do not let me down here. Watch out for them."

He hung up on the sarcastic vampire, and then tried to work out where else Klaus might've gone. The more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed that Klaus would've taken his most valuable asset back home. He would've taken her somewhere else, a safe house somewhere, perhaps.

Then the answer hit him.

There was a witch a couple of towns over who Klaus had had a number of dealings with. It was a witch from a fairly old bloodline, whose loyalty to Klaus had initially stemmed from fear, because his brother loved the whole concept of emotional blackmail, finding it produced better results than any other method, but then that loyalty eventually became steadfast and voluntary, due to the fact Klaus made sure to pay his witch for her help on occasion.

He couldn't remember the address, but he did remember her house was located along a boulevard, always in direct line of the moon. Elijah smiled grimly, rolled his sleeves up a little, and proceeded to construct a plan within his mind as to how best to proceed with his new mission.

….

Within no time at all, Elena and Klaus arrived at the house of a witch, and it was obvious to spot the witch's house, due to the fact the house itself – located in a seemingly ordinary street – was remarkably dissimilar to its neighbours.

It was pale green in colour, terrace in nature, situated along a boulevard, but that wasn't what immediately stood out. There were a number of unique wind chimes and statues littered around the front porch of the house, which could be accessed via a set of stone steps. Some of these statues were large porcelain cats, ranging from panthers to tigers to the ordinary house cat, and others were just abstract designs she couldn't quite work out.

"I should warn you," Klaus remarked, noticing what she seemed to be staring at. "The witch we're going to see has an affinity for cats. Rather cliché if you ask me, but some enjoy perpetuating the stereotype."

"I noticed," she replied, holding back a little, her eyes taking in everything.

Klaus actually grinned at her like they were friends about to embark on an adventure together, though he couldn't quite diminish the solemn look in his eyes.

"Just wait until we're inside, love. You'll get quite the surprise."

To her surprise, he beckoned her forwards rather than dragging her, and it was that which gave her the confidence to move.

Up the stairs they walked, Elena lingering half a step behind, and as Klaus reached the front door, it opened before he had chance to knock. Just in front of him stood a quite bizarre looking woman, wrapped in a brown shawl, whose hair was braided, and fell past her shoulders, veering dangerously close to the ground.

She was olive skinned, about in her late thirties, early forties – although appearances could be deceiving – and her neck was covered with necklaces and chains. Her arms were littered with bracelets, and there was a distinct tattoo of an unusual symbol just on the side of her neck.

Elena regarded her the way a child might regard an adult they've only just met – with a sense of wariness, but at the same time holding the hope that the physical appearance gave way to something much more relatable. She suddenly gave an alarming yelp, as a cat came skidding from nowhere, yowling loudly, and moved to one side, her wariness levels taking a steady rise.

"This is the doppelgänger," the woman drawled, her accent thick and pronounced; she'd definitely been born and raised in America, despite what her skin colour suggested. "The spirits talk a lot about her."

"I imagine," Klaus interrupted, looking at her with solemn, distrustful eyes. "Can we get on with this now, Tia?"

"Yes, yes." The woman impatiently beckoned them both inside. "I wish you would've given me a little more time to set up." She eyed him sharply. "But I guess hybrids aren't notorious for being patient, so that wish was rather a redundant one to make."

"Where do you want me?" Klaus asked, clapping his hands together, clearly eager to get started.

"First I need her blood. The rest I can perform right here. I have everything set up in the back for afterwards." The witch – apparently named Tia - grabbed Elena before she could protest, producing a sharp knife, overturning her hands and running the blade along her skin to produce a thin stream of blood, which she immediately turned and poured over a bubbling mixture resting on a counter nearby, which emitted a thin, odourless vapour.

"Why do you need my blood?" Elena spluttered indignantly.

Klaus didn't speak at first, but the glare she sent him soon made him roll his eyes, as if it was unreasonable for her to expect to have been kept out of this.

"I said I would help my brother by being the vessel for what's killing him," he said slowly, "but if things go wrong, I'm going to need some insurance to make sure nothing happens to me in the process. So my life force is now attached to yours. What happens to you will happen to me."

She gaped at him.

_"What?"_

"It's almost funny," Klaus said, almost to himself, "how my fate seems to continue to rest in the hands of a Petrova – and I suppose I could've used any other human for this task – but I don't know. My new life was begun by the same blood which runs through your veins; I suppose it's only fitting it'll be your blood that protects me here too."

Elena gave him a dark look, every curse word under the sun spinning on her tongue, which, thankfully, she kept from being unleashed.

"I'm done being your puppet. I'm outta here," she growled instead, spinning on her heels, preparing to leave when all of a sudden, Klaus gave the tiniest of nods to Tia, who closed her eyes, grabbed his hand, and began chanting something.

Elena felt something grip her tightly – a strong, inexplicably powerful feeling – and she tried to fight it, but it was like fighting a strong current in that she could only fight for so long before falling under. She tried moving, but she couldn't. It was like walking against an invisible barrier of some kind and, in only a matter of moments, simultaneously, both Klaus and Elena dropped to the ground, Tia presiding over them with an almost cold indifference.

Meanwhile, lingering just by the front window, Elijah glanced in, a cool smile fixed in place, as he considered the fortunate set of circumstances which had landed before him. It seemed he had a way of eliminating two birds with one stone, and given the fact it was his duty to rid the world of vampires, who was he to argue with good fortune now it had landed on his doorstep?

But there was still that nagging voice inside of him _fighting _on, begging him not to do this, getting angrier by every second.

It was irritating, but not entirely unendurable. He could fight it off later, but right now he had a task to complete, and his hands were about to get very bloody indeed.

If Klaus and Elena's fates were, indeed, linked, then he wouldn't need to make the arduous trip to Mystic Falls to locate the last remaining White Oak stake, and with the demises of both the doppelgänger and his brother, the demises of the entire vampire race would follow afterwards, each falling after the other like a line of dominoes leading to the cleansing of the earth.

* * *

**A/n: Apologies for the delay in posting this up. I found this really hard to write. When I get too deep into a story, I tend to struggle around this sort of time into the story. There will be more explained next chapter, and more flashbacks of the Originals will be included, some with Tatia, some without. I'm trying to get back into writing this story again because this chapter was a bitch to write. Hope you enjoy it :)**


	11. Battles

Battered Souls

~Chapter 11

Battles

...

It was a cold draft that Elena found herself waking up to. Her body felt frozen, so she had to massage some warmth back into her skin, and it made her wonder just how long she'd been out. Her eyes opened slowly, taking in the dark room, and the first thing she registered was that she was in some sort of basement, presumably Tia's.

She pushed herself to a sitting position, realising she'd been dumped unceremoniously on the floor, which she took a few moments to be indignant about before quickly moving on. She cast her gaze around, surprising that for a basement it was pretty bare, but her eyes still caught sight of a few objects, like the odd rickety shelf with several empty jars along it – and the odd cobweb – and a discarded fridge, to name but a few.

Then her eyes fell on the witch responsible for being the one to drag her down here, and her mouth pressed into a hard line. Tia sat on the floor cross-legged, observing her quietly, her eyes a shockingly bright shade of green, and Elena found her stare seemed to contain an unspoken challenge there that she couldn't quite work out, and it unnerved her. Having dealt with only Bonnie before, she'd always assumed that witches were all the same in nature, at least when you got down to the heart of the matter, and she'd hoped they all shared the same desire to protect humans, and not be on the side of a corrupted bloodline.

It was then Elena remembered Greta, and she grimaced, slowly becoming aware that even witches, supposedly the purest of all supernatural species, could be drawn to the dark side given the right influences. But she summoned her friend's face in her mind, and wondered if she could use her humanity to help persuade Tia to let her go.

"It's not going to work, honey," came Tia's deep voice. "I know you're trying to figure out a way out of here, but I promised Klaus I'd keep you here until he's finished doing what he has to do."

Elena rose to her feet, quietly fuming.

"It's not right that he's using me yet again," she seethed. "So, what, my life is now tied to his? Whatever happens to him happens to me?"

Tia smiled. "Not quite. It's not voodoo. That's a different form of magic altogether. It's an insurance policy...for both of you. His fate is tied to yours, and vice versa, but it doesn't necessarily mean what happens to you will happen to him."

"Where's his body? Is it in this house?"

"No. I've made special arrangements for him. He always stays one step ahead, and he knows there's a chance the witches who attacked his family before will be back, so he told me to make sure his body didn't stay in this house."

Elena decided to ask a different question, seeing how Tia was being decidedly unhelpful, but with so many soaring around her mind it was hard to pick one which had a good chance at being answered. Did she even want to know what was happening right now? She felt tired, drained, her head was pounding, and above all else she felt afraid.

She also didn't particularly want to admit she was thinking about Elijah more than perhaps was considered normal, given what he'd done to her even though she knew it wasn't his fault. She'd never seen Elijah vamped out before, so to see him looking as far from composed and noble as she'd seen him before was more than a little disconcerting.

"So how will you know when Klaus has done what he needs to do?" she asked, before adding, "And what does he even have to do? His mother's a powerful witch; she could destroy him."

"Witches are powerful, but we have certain limitations," Tia spoke, wrestling with something in her hands that Elena couldn't quite see. "If the Original Witch is as powerful as I've heard, granted she'll try her best to attack Klaus, but if she's got a different agenda entirely, chances are all he's doing now is for nothing."

"What do you mean?"

Tia sighed, as if the question was a useless one.

"See, honey, without Klaus' brother here, it's impossible to bridge the connection between them without at least something of his to work with. It's like throwing someone into a random ocean trying to retrieve a lost item, hoping against hope it's the one you want, but knowing full well there's an enormous risk you're sending a man to drown for potentially nothing." Her eyes locked on Elena's. "If there's one thing a witch really hates – besides vampires, of course – it's doing a spell blindly. I'm sure you've encountered enough witches before to know they seem to enjoy moaning about the consequences about everything. It's why I don't listen to a damn warning I get from the other side."

Elena stared.

"You're a rogue witch, aren't you?"

Tia grinned.

"Guilty as charged. As Klaus warned you, I enjoy perpetuating the old stereotypes of what a witch really is. I have broomsticks, black cats, and a house that creaks more than these bones do." She slapped her thigh jokingly. "I prefer going at this alone. I know I'm supposed to be united with the entire witchy community at every goddamn moment of every goddamn day, but being an outcast just seemed the easier life choice."

"How come?"

"You don't get judged for the choices the make, the deals you uphold," Tia responded, her emerald green eyes lowered away, lingering on her own hands. "Klaus was right – you do ask a _lot _of questions." Her eyes were back on Elena's before she could even keep track of what the hell she was staring at. "Figured as the doppelganger you must surely be used to having a life where you don't get to make a damn decision for yourself."

"It's not the lack of free will that gets me. It's the fact that everybody needs me for something," Elena complained, very bitter all of a sudden, wondering why she was unloading this useless bit of trivia to a witch who clearly didn't give a crap about her. "Why are you even helping him anyway?"

Tia opened her mouth to answer, but a resounding crash interrupted her, and they both looked up at the ceiling. Elena felt a prickle of fear cripple her spine, but she followed Tia as they crept through the darkness and tiptoed up the stairs, lingering by the door like amateur spies.

"What was that?" Elena whispered, before she was rudely shushed by Tia, who, suddenly as bold as anything, strode confidently out into the hallway, before something hit her chest, causing her to stagger backwards.

Elena watched in mute horror as a scarlet area started to spread around Tia's chest, and as Tia fell to her knees, she attempted to remove the dagger, before looking ahead with hateful eyes, her arms outspread, clearly about to do a spell in retaliation when all of a sudden another flash of silver pierced her skin, this time at the base of her throat, and, with a loud gargle of horror, the blood pouring out of her like a waterfall, Tia fell backwards, her eyes widening for the last time before freezing there.

Closing her eyes, Elena felt fear gather quickly inside her chest, and she clung to the wall for a few moments, praying for courage she clearly did not have right now. Tentatively, she glanced around the corner, her eyes catching a familiar suited figure, who stood there wearing a smirk that wasn't his own, his eyes pooling with a coldness that she'd only seen the once, and it had chilled her to the bone.

"Oh, Elena," came Elijah's mocking voice. "Will you not come out and speak with me? I know you're there."

Elena remained frozen for a few moments, wishing she had her phone on her. Hell, she even wished Klaus was around because she knew her chances against an Original were slim at best.

Then, unexpectedly, the courage she required came to her, and she stepped cautiously out of hiding, half expecting a knife to hit her in the chest, but something far more frightening came into view.

Elijah stood there, completely calm, a match resting between the fingers on one hand, while the fingers on the other held a matchbox. His eyes seemed to drink in her appearance, the smallest of smirks gracing his face. She stood there, waiting for the inevitable strike to fall her, but he didn't speak at first, merely watched her, in the same way a hunter would watch its prey, with the same calculating look in his eyes, as if he was deciding how far he would push her before striking.

"What are you doing?" she asked, coming into view, her hands balled into fists by her side.

"I cannot get into the house as you well know," Elijah spoke, his eyes drifting from hers to land on the match, which he began to light. "So we can do this one of two ways: either you come out, or I burn the house to the ground with you in it. Your choice."

Elena swallowed.

"What happened to you?" she asked, stalling for time. "Where's the real Elijah?"

He smiled.

"Oh, I'm still the same man you've always known, Elena. What you're witnessing here is just the side of me that's always been a part of me, a part of me that's despised what I am; a part of me that knows I shouldn't have lived this long. It's unnatural."

Elena stared coldly at him.

"So that's it? You're just giving up? Letting your species be annihilated? You're okay with dying?"

For the briefest of moments, it looked like he struggled with the answer, but she might've imagined it because his face smoothed over so it looked expressionless, and she realised there was probably no reasoning with him right now.

"It's the right thing to do, Elena. You know this. Your life has been ruined by vampires. You lost your aunt because of them, and your friends' lives have been upended because of their existence. You cannot deny this, surely?"

"No, but –"

"There we go." His lips pressed into a hard line. "You are the key to Klaus' downfall, Elena, and therefore the key to saving the lives of an entire generation of people. Why would you not want to be a part of it?"

"Because the way you justify genocide is not right," she shot at him. "There's good and bad in every species, Elijah. You taught me there's always another way. You taught me to look at things differently, and I did. I looked at you differently. I respected you. This? This I can't respect."

Again, she felt like he was on the verge of some sort of personal breakdown. The way his composed expression crumbled for just a moment gave her some sort of indication that perhaps the real Elijah was still in there, fighting, and this gave her a surge of confidence.

She stepped forward, but went no further, folding her arms, making sure her eyes were locked on his. She felt like perhaps if he saw the confident, no-nonsense side of her, maybe she could get on the same level as him. All she needed was for them to remain in a stalemate while she figured out how best to retrieve the old Elijah back.

"So you will go down defending monsters?" His lip curled into a sneer. "Do you realise how pathetic that makes you?"

"No." She shook her head defiantly. "Don't you call me pathetic. It makes me strong that I can see the good in something that became progressively evil throughout time. You admired that about me, remember?"

She thought she saw a flash of recognition in Elijah's eyes and stepped forward boldly, edging closer and closer to the door. It was gone in an instant, naturally, but she felt like she was getting closer and closer to achieving her goal altogether.

"Your mother is behind this," she said slowly. "She's poisoned you against everything you ever stood for before. Doesn't that bother you?"

Elijah lit the match in response, watching her face as he aimed it and then threw it behind her so it landed on the carpet. She jumped, flinching as the flames roared into life on their own. Backing away, she tried to run towards the kitchen to be able to access water to drown out the fire, but the flames were quicker, and she realised he'd poured gasoline, or something similar, along the carpet.

How had she not noticed the smell?

He'd lit another one, and thrown it in, before she could even react to the first attack, and she started to tremble, even more aware of the situation he'd put her in.

"So, what do you say, Elena?" Elijah remarked. "Are you going to step out of the house, or are you going to stay inside and burn? I learned this trick from Rebekah."

"I worked that out for myself, funnily enough," Elena replied frostily, eyeing the flames with a mixture of fear and anger.

"Then what is your next move? Because there are only so many places you can run. Why not end this now, and step outside? Where is this remarkable courage you are supposed to possess?"

"You always admired that about me. Don't act like you've never seen it. It just confirms you're not Elijah," she retorted, clinging to the wall, eyeing the trail of flames as it quickly engulfed every exit possible, barring the front door.

She had to make a split second decision in that moment, and with the decision she eventually made, she decided to use this opportunity to try and find Elijah's humanity at the same time. The method she had in mind she wouldn't have normally used, but, hell, desperate times called for desperate methods, right?

Launching herself forward, in a move she could automatically see caught Elijah off guard, she propelled herself out of the door, making sure her body collided with his, and the movement actually caused him to stagger backwards.

Instantly, she could gage reactions from two different individuals, which confirmed her theory about him. The way his hands steadied her, lingering too long on her before releasing her, felt like the hands of a man who'd spent a long time trying to make sure he kept the object in his hands safe and well protected. However, his eyes, which were hard and angry, honed in on hers, and they spoke of an individual worn out from a chase that stretched back into the vaults of history, an individual who just wanted to complete his mission and then retire into oblivion.

They spent a moment like that, him locked in a battle she could only bear witness to. He seemed to struggle internally, his hands lingering either side of her, not quite touching her but close enough that she could feel their presence. Her eyes travelled upwards, taking in every expression that passed across his eyes, from anger to confusion back to anger again.

She managed to pick up on when the anger became the dominant expression, because soon one of those hands came towards her throat, so she spun neatly out from in front of him, but he was quick with his response, and with an even quicker response, he'd grabbed her, pinning to the ground, his dark eyes boring down on hers, in a way which left her almost breathless.

She'd never quite notice before how intense his stare could be, even putting aside the fact he wasn't himself right now. His eyes, which could contain an entire world of emotions, were beautiful, a deep shade of an in-between colour that seemed to contain a mixture of the darkest shades of the darkest colours along the spectrum, and she almost felt herself sliding into another world for a moment.

Then Elijah pulled her violently out of a fantasy which had spawned from nowhere, his hands grasping her throat tightly, his lips pressed together in a hard line.

"Sorry, Elena, but your death seems to be the key to achieving my mission here," he said, not a note of genuine sorrow audible in his voice. "I'll make it quick."

He pressed down, and she could vaguely see from the corner of her eyes the flames consuming the house she'd been in momentarily. They roared and burned with an intense glow, almost blinding to the naked eye. She turned her head, fighting, kicking out, doing anything to try and preserve her life but Elijah was stronger.

"Please," she wheezed out, using her doe eyes to try and reason with the real Elijah she was sure was still locked in there, somewhere. "Don't do this. You're better than this."

Elijah snorted, but he couldn't help blinking rapidly when her face seemed to change before his eyes, to the face of his own sister, and he remembered something which momentarily caused his grip on Elena to slacken somewhat.

...

_He was chopping wood when Rebekah had filed silently into view, her hair cascading down her face, hiding something he was sure of it. He watched as she came to sit by him, watching him for a few moments as he turned great big logs into manageable piles of wood for the purposes of building fires._

_ "You are silent, little sister," he spoke, giving her enough time to spill whatever secret it was she was harbouring._

_ He knew her well; when she wasn't scolding, or singing, or using her voice to make sure she was heard, that's when he knew something was bothering her. She could hide it well enough, but there would be the telltale sign in her eyes, showing a sadness himself and Niklaus had learned to recognise at this point. _

_ "Perhaps I have not much to say," she retorted, her gaze too focused on what he was doing to give her answer much conviction._

_ "Might I remind you that you only usually come to find me when something upsets you and you feel you cannot share it with our brothers," Elijah pointed out, finishing the last of his chore before coming to sit next to her._

_ With careful fingers, he tucked her hair from her face, blanching at the sight of an ugly bruise lingering around her right eye. It was a violent purple in colour, and it seemed to resemble the shape of a handprint, which made anger shudder through his body at the same force as an earthquake. _

_ "Who?" he spoke, his anger barely concealed._

_ "Let's just say it was one of those inconsiderate pigs in the village, and leave it at that," she returned, fury and sadness woven into one emotion which coated her voice. "Apparently some people cannot take no for an answer."_

_ "But he didn't try anything else, did he?"_

_ She glared at him._

_ "We both know I can handle a sword well enough to scare any fool who dares try. On this occasion, he just happened to get in a good blow before I could find one to do so."_

_ "Rebekah..."_

_ "Elijah. You mustn't speak of this to Niklaus. He will kill him, and Father will be furious at him for disturbing our peace with our neighbours. You know what Father is like; he looks for any excuse to punish our Nik."_

_ "This I know, but he will see the mark. Any fool can see it bears more than a passing resemblance to a fist," he pointed out, still shaking with fury. "At least let me exact vengeance in my way. I'll spare him his life, but perhaps not all of his limbs, if you just point out – "_

_ "No." She was adamant. "I can fight my own battles, Elijah. I am not some delicate flower you can shield from view in the hopes I'll blossom into something strong. That is not how life works. I must bleed to learn the best ways to protect myself in the future."_

_ "How can a man stoop so low as to attack a woman?" Elijah fumed, putting his arm around his sister. "What gives him the right to address himself as a man if dares lay a hand on someone more vulnerable than himself?"_

_ "Women are stronger than you give them credit for, Elijah," Rebekah chided, resting her head against her shoulders."They are warriors too, if you allow them to be. This is just my battle wound."_

_ He gazed at her softly, entwining his fingers with hers, the heat of the midday sun warming his back, even though the rest of his skin was cold to the touch at the thought that Rebekah had been attacked in this way. He could see her point though; Niklaus' temper was famed throughout the village, with only their parents unaware of the true violent nature of the boy who cowered before them simply because the way he dealt with the blows their father delivered to him involved taking out his issues on anybody else who even looked at him funny._

_ Perhaps, therefore, this had been a case of revenge, the attack on Rebekah. Perhaps Niklaus, with his impulsive nature, had riled up someone, and rather than attack him, they'd elected to use the cowardly way out and go for Rebekah instead._

_ Elijah couldn't believe such cowards existed. What gentleman raised a fist to a lady – and no matter what Rebekah said, that was what she would always be to him – and could still walk about like they'd not committed such a despicable act? _

_ Maybe Rebekah was right in one respect; women were warriors. Rebekah was the strongest woman he'd ever known, perhaps rivalled only by their own mother of course, and the fact she'd grown up with a set of brothers with clashing personalities and manners even the wild boars would turn their tusks with disgust at and survived never ceased to amaze him. She was beautiful and strong, qualities he would eventually look for – somewhat in vain – over the next few centuries, before finding it again in a set of warm brown eyes._

_ For now, beckoning his sister to remain where she was, he went to fetch a cold cloth, and then, with all the tenderness in the world, proceeded to hold it against her bruise._

_ "I thought since you took the beating, I would take the role of playing nurse," he said, smiling at her in response to her questioning look, "My brave warrior princess. May the next battle be on more equal footing." He kissed her forehead tenderly. "You have a temper, and the determination, to rival that of a thousand men."_

_ She smiled, her eyes shining with newfound pride. _

_ "But where would a warrior princess be without her dear brother soldier by her side? You would defend as bravely as any man before or after you, and fight with the integrity I know you'll have inside you always and forever."_

_ He smiled, playfully nudging her._

_ "Though I fiercely loathe the idea of you at the frontline of any battle, I would be more than proud to fight alongside you." His smile widened. "If the speed at which you can wield a sword is equal to the speed at which your tongue travels sometimes, lord knows mercy should be bestowed upon us all."_

_ It was her turn to shove him playfully._

_ "I do not talk that much, brother. But I appreciate the sentiment all the same." She eyed him meaningfully. "I hope you find a woman who can keep up with the high standards you set for yourself."_

_ "What do you mean?"_

_ "I've yet to see a woman on your arm. Nik and Kol and Finn all have had their share of women; when will you show an interest in one?"_

_ "Perhaps the day I find a woman whose tongue is as sharp as yours, or a heart as big as yours, will be the day I settle down, but for now, sister, we shall both have to put up with each other as companions," he laughed, tussling her hair with affection._

_ "If she is prettier than me, I shall sulk and profess to mock her behind her back," Rebekah warned. "I shall not play fair if her beauty is more obvious than mine. Take note."_

_ He laughed again._

_ "Fair warning, dear sister. Fair warning."_

...

The memory came to him as vivid as a dream, and it was hard to shake Rebekah's face out of his mind, how dark the bruise had been, how intense his desire for revenge had been, and now here he was, threatening to kill a woman because she was simply a means to an end.

_"Do not let memories old tempt you into abandoning your mission," _crooned a voice in his mind; it was unclear whose voice it belonged to. _"Be strong, and fulfil the task I set you out to do."_

He looked down at Elena, who was gazing up at him, the fear evident, but his eyes focused on the red marks on her neck where his fingers had been. A split second's hesitation was all she needed; she rolled away from him and began to run, and it took him moments to respond, only because the memory now playing in his mind seemed to control him.

He caught up to Elena within seconds, his fingers all set to snap her neck seeing how strangling her was time consuming, but before he could fulfil his mission, two sets of arms threw themselves around him, wrestling him away. He recognises the strength; why did his family insist on protecting her when they'd never given a damn about her before?

A part of him rejoiced that Kol and Rebekah had taken it upon themselves to save her, and he knew why.

As much as he pretended he was calm and collected, the real Elijah lay bubbling under the surface, fuming about what was going on, ready to rip out the hearts out of anyone who dared lay a hand on his family or Elena. He was trying to keep this voice silenced but because he'd not fed in a while – poor mistake on his part, he'd admit – it meant whatever dark magic had feasted itself inside of him, it wasn't as strong as it'd been before.

Maybe that was the key.

_Not feeding._

"Easy, brother," came Kol's mocking voice. "You've got to stop leading us on a merry bloody chase, brother."

"How did you find me?" Elijah snarled, his eyes on Elena; _always _on Elena, it seemed, and not always for reasons he understood.

"Like my brother was just going to take the doppelganger back to her precious family and friends," Rebekah sneered, not even bothering to give her nemesis a scathing glance. "I know my brother's tricks. He likes to make a dramatic exit, and travelling around with him for a thousand years means I know who my brother knows, and from there it was just about working out where his closest contact was, so ta-da."

"We share a lot more than just good looks, brother," Kol added, tapping his head as if to prove his point.

Rebekah threw him a dirty look but didn't comment.

"We've got your back, Elijah," she told him. "I will always find a way to save you, but that isn't going to happen if you're off fighting your own bloody battle. We remain as one, always and forever."

"You can't throw that in my face, Rebekah. I wasn't there for that family moment," Kol pointed, pouting dramatically.

"Oh, _bite _me, Kol."

Taking advantage of them distracting each other with petty quarrels, Elijah twisted both their arms, and barrelled forwards, grabbing Elena and whisking her off before Rebekah and Kol could even do so much as register what had happened.

"Damn it," Rebekah screeched, shaking her blonde hair with disgust. "We need to find Klaus' body."

"Oh, sure. That'll be an easy task. He's been so forthcoming with every other part of his plan up until now," Kol quipped.

"Then we tear apart every bloody house in this bloody town until we find him," Rebekah seethed, her face only inches apart from Kol's. "He can't be too far. The stupid witch wouldn't have had enough time to take him any further."

"Stupid dead witch," Kol pointed out, somewhat morosely as he gazed at the burning wreckage of the house. "Elijah never likes doing things halfway, does he?"

"Assuming it even is Elijah we're dealing with here," Rebekah added, somewhat gloomily.

_Guess it's time for the warrior princess to step up to the bat to help her fallen soldier brother, _she thought, as she and Kol, in perfect synchronicity, broke into a run to get the help they needed.

She also couldn't help thinking about that simpler time, when she and Elijah had sat in the grass, nursing wounds that could actually be fixed with good old fashioned methods, talking and joking about battles they'd never dreamed they'd actually be fighting. He'd believed in her, even as they'd given each other cute nicknames, and so she owed it to him to believe that they could save their brother, no matter what.

If somewhere along the line that meant killing the one woman she was sure Elijah felt more than strongly connected to, Rebekah knew who she'd pick every time.

It's just now, unlike previously, she would actually feel guilty if it actually came down to it; not because she liked the girl – not by any means – but because she'd learned to read the signs of when somebody had fallen in love, even without them knowing it – and Elijah's behaviour pre-madness had shown every single symptom of love ever possible to show on one face.

Whether Elena felt the same, however, remained to be seen, but all Rebekah knew was that the girl had had plenty of chances to get the hell out of here and she'd stayed, and that had to mean something. She just wasn't sure what.

* * *

**A/n: THANK YOU FOR ALL THE REVIEWS. You guys are amazing. Truly. I wanted to include a cute Elijah/Rebekah scene because I feel like those two haven't shared enough screen time together just yet. I loved their bond in the few scenes we've been given though. Not sure if I'm really happy with this chapter but it's something isn't it? This is dedicated to HazelHeart93 for all her support on Tumblr (wearetheoriginals) **** Hope you enjoyed this chapter hon! **** Keep reviewing, it makes me smile and – hopefully – update faster. **


	12. Humanity

Battered Souls

….

~Chapter 12

Humanity

….

Summary: When a mysterious illness strikes Elijah, causing him to confuse Elena with former love Tatia, the whole Original family band together with Elena to try and save his life. Elena/Elijah, with a good dose of the Original family as a side dish ;) A fic that plays havoc with canon – in this story, Alaric didn't complete the transition, so is dead for all intents and purposes (sorry readers) – and is set just after the dance in 3x20.

….

Inside his own mind, Elijah realised he was at war with himself.

_Leave, _his alter ego snarled.

_No. Why aren't you embracing this? You say you're noble; well, this is your chance to do the noble thing here. _

_ By eradicating every vampire in existence? There are better ways of pursuing peace and you know it._

_ Really? _Elijah let a smile curl his lips. _Pray, tell me of these better ways. _

There was a lengthy pause.

_Not all vampires are of evil blood. Some use their newfound abilities to pursue a life devoted to helping others._

Elijah searched his memory for specific examples of what his – for lack of a better word – conscience was telling him. He pulled up images of a vivacious blonde girl, as well as a brown haired boy with dark, brooding eyes that spoke of a tortured soul his alter ego could well relate to - namely Caroline Forbes and Stefan Salvatore.

He scoffed, clearly scornful of the evidence he was being shown.

_This is all well and good, and we could argue about the good and bad in every species until we are both blue in the face, but we both know the main difference between humans and vampires is that one species was created by nature through time and effort, while the other was created out of selfishness, out of a moment's recklessness that has cost more lives than any war ever recorded._

_ That's debatable. But riddle me this; if you're so intent on killing all vampires, why have you not killed Elena when you know she is the key to bringing down everything?_

Elijah pursed his lips, his dark eyes falling on Elena, who he'd bound to a chair, her hair fallen across her eyes, the marks on her skin from where he'd gripped her visible, even under the faint stream of light the now dying bulb from the storage shed he'd hired for the purposes of a quick getaway released. He felt a prickle of guilt at her state, and the moment he realised he was letting emotions – or, more specifically, his alter ego – direct him, he shut it all down.

Instead, he took a moment to study her, the face of the girl who was key to everyone's downfall – physical and emotional – and tried to work out what was specifically striking about this particular look which meant it would be copied until the end of time. Her experiences in her short life so far had clearly had an impact on her, judging by the way her mouth seemed downturned, almost as if it had forgotten how to smile, and the tight marks along her forehead, which resembled stress lines. He shouldn't have examined her in this way, and she should've long been dead by now, but something other than this rather coarse desire hidden in his bloodstream kept him from killing her himself.

_The Petrova bloodline has been important long since before Tatia's existence. You know this because I do. _

_ Be quiet. Why am I unable to repress you? _

_ Because despite mother's best efforts, she's never been able to extinguish the deepest parts of her children's natures. Mine happens to be a determination to not let tyrants like Mother win. _

_ You talk about her like she never gave birth to you – to us. You talk about her with such disdain, such...hatred._

_ That's because she tore our family apart. She was willing to kill us all, and the worst part was she felt no shame or guilt for doing so. There was not a flicker of humanity in her eyes as she prepared to end all our lives, and even now she continues with her efforts. Why? _

_ We were not supposed to live this long, Elijah. This is a curse. I am ending it._

_ Go ahead. Try. But know with every fighting breath in my body, I will try and stop you. And despite the fact you possess all the memories I do, you seem to remain woefully ignorant of how stubborn and determined my siblings can be. Combined, I'd say, they make a more formidable team than anything any witch could conjure up._

Elijah released a snarl, which was audible enough to stir Elena,who blinked up at him with tired doe-like eyes, her breathing pattern unaltered by her new situation. It seemed she was accustomed to being carted around like an object, more than used to being treated as something disposable, and that realisation sent a sharp stab to his heart.

_Stop that! _he hissed at himself.

_Relinquish possession of my body then. _

_ Not until my mission is complete._

"Elijah," Elena murmured huskily, her low tone due to exhaustion. "Where are we?"

"Somewhere safe," was all he would say.

"And why haven't you killed me yet?"

"Because you're the perfect hostage to getting Klaus back here so I can stake him."

"How will he even know where here is? He's lying in a coffin somewhere, unconscious."

"Believe me, if he's trying to take my mother on head to head, she'll tell him where to go."

Elena nodded, leaning her head back to appraise the ceiling.

"You're not fighting," he observed. "Why?"

"I couldn't if I tried. And I figured since my life is doomed to be a neverending chase sequence between me and your family, I'd shorten the story," she replied. "Nobody could get through to Alaric when he was like this, so I don't know why I'd expect to get through to you."

Elijah remained cold and indifferent to her plight, yet since he was going nowhere for the moment, he thought he would indulge his curiosity and ask a question he'd been pondering for a while.

"Why do you even look for redeeming qualities in a man who has a bloodier history than even his own siblings?"

She tilted her head to one side, fathoming his level of sincerity before deciding to answer his question.

"You looked for a way to save me when there was no other way, a way that didn't involve me giving up my humanity. We didn't get the chance to find out whether it would've worked or not, but the fact you gave me hope means a lot to me. And I've learned not to judge people based on first impressions. I was terrified of you when I first saw you, and now? Now I would gladly put my life in your hands."

He gave a sneer at that.

"Then that makes you incredibly stupid. You can't trust vampires, Elena. I've killed for pleasure. My first kill was a seven year old boy who lived in our village. I've torn apart many lives, and I've never regretted it." He leaned forward, his dark eyes boring down on hers. "Given what you've lost, how are you still defending vampires like they are your best friends?"

"Not all of them are bad. Some of them work hard to redeem themselves."

"Some creatures can never be redeemed."

"You say that like nothing can ever change, like nothing is ever capable of evolving into something better than it had ever been before," she argued. "You know the problem with witches? They are stuck with the mindset that they need to eradicate something they helped create in the first place."

"My mother created them. Generalising witches is an error I would not advise making."

"Right. But how did she know what spell to use to make vampires in the first place?" Elena pointed out. "Ever since I heard the story, there's always been one question hounding me, and it's of all the ways to protect her children from the werewolves, how did she know to pick that one? And why? I don't get how witches can create spells blindly, particularly ones that seemingly are against nature."

Elijah gritted his teeth.

_Does this girl ever shut up?_

_ She's intelligent. She knows there's more to this story. I had the same curiosity as she did once, and I found many different answers to the questions she's asking. _

_ Yeah, well I have a better question to ask right now – why can I not drown your voice out, when Alaric Saltzman could drown out his? He was a human, inferior, and yet I am stuck with the persistant voice of a weaker man who will one day be the death of us if he isn't careful._

_ I have a theory about that too. _

_ Go on. _

_ Given the fact Alaric was killed frequently, which gave Mother plenty of chances to poison his mind, and the fact most of what he'd lost was as a result of the presence of vampires, he had a lot more to gain from embracing his dark side and purging out vampires than we do. What have we really lost that we loved with all our hearts?_

_ Our humanity. _

The answer came swiftly, and was delivered brutally, if not honestly. Elijah waited a moment, waiting to see if that other voice could come back with a response, and then grinned when there was nothing.

Just the echo of a guilt that stretched way back in time, back to the moment when he'd first held the body of his first kill in his arms, roaring with a deep sadness he couldn't quite understand, the blood still smeared around his mouth and on his fingers.

The thing – and by that he meant the _underlining problem_ - was that he couldn't work out why he was really hesitating to kill Elena. Strategically, using her to lure the other Originals here was a perfectly viable reason for why he kept her alive; emotion wise, however, was where he lost track of reason entirely. Part of him felt a bloom of affection for her, part of him wanted to crush her head against the wall repeatedly until blood bloomed. The two desires were so contradictive, it almost drove him mad, and that was when he realised exactly what the other part of him was doing.

It was _messing _with him.

He wondered whether Alaric Saltzman had gone through, whether during those moments of darkness he'd looked on the faces of those he professed to care about and felt a flicker of something his alter ego found it almost difficult to shut out entirely.

He let out a groan, and knew he had to kill her. Perhaps then that would give the other version of himself something to grieve over while he was out doing what needed to be done. With that in mind, he strode over to Elena, who glanced up at him with bleary eyes,and grabbed her hair, yanking her head back.

"I'm sorry for this, Elena," he spoke, his voice robotic, devoid of any emotion. "I'm sorry you've been caught up in the middle of something much bigger than yourself."

She didn't react at first; in fact, it was hard to tell what she was thinking. Her gaze was speculative, and her eyes fell to level with his lips for the briefest of seconds, but beyond that he couldn't have said for sure what she was thinking. Again, this should've been the moment where he snapped her neck, but something held him back.

_Because you know it's wrong, that's what's holding you back._

His conscience and his alter ego seemed to be annoyingly in tune. They spoke as one voice, yet he could still differ one from the other.

Elena suddenly leaned forward, craning her neck with a determination that robbed him of speech and thought, and pressed her lips against his. It wasn't particularly a violent kiss, but the force behind it shook him beyond belief. It wasn't chaste or tender, but more like a screaming declaration – but he wasn't sure what she was declaring exactly –and he froze, something inside of him shaking, _bursting _at the seams to be free.

He didn't react.

He _couldn't _react.

And that was when something inside of him simply snapped, and he was plunged into darkness.

...

_Instantly, he felt himself being pulled back to a familiar world, a world that wasn't littered with buildings and cars, a world built from the foundations nature had provided; nothing more, nothing less. He felt the grass between his toes, the wind through his hair, the sense of freedom in his bones._

_ Elijah saw the vivid greens and blues of the world he'd grown up. He saw Mystic Falls as it once had been, not the pretentious town it now was. The woods, the fields, the tunnels were all before him, laid bare like the contour lines on a map long since engraved on his memory._

_ This felt like a flashback, only he was vividly aware of the events which had long preceded this moment right here. He paused, sensing he was being watched, but because of the fact he was now reduced to his former human state, his reflexes were slow, and his senses were dull. He could only really put down this feeling of being watched to pure instinct, nothing more, and it made him wary._

_ He closed his eyes, absorbing everything, the way everything felt. This was more than a memory, but not quite as substantial as a dream. It felt like a world formed between reality and the past, a weird sort of bridge which allowed him to remember and also to forget at the same time. Honestly, this was what he'd missed; he'd missed this feeling of every breath being important, of everything feeling as fragile and as breakable as glass because that's what humanity was – breakable. He'd never liked viewing the world as a toy, as something he could smash and destroy, because that's what came with being a vampire – that inevitable sense of power which inflated your ego, whether you liked it or not. He missed appreciating nature for what it was, not what was left after man had covered it with manufactured towers and buildings that ultimately served no purpose._

_ A gentle breeze perfumed with the scent of pine wood - a scent he'd sorely missed, he wasn't going to lie - reached his nostrils, pulling them apart so he could take more of it in. As he turned, he blinked, surprised to see Tatia lying on the grass, her dress fanning out from around her, like she was the centerpiece of an elaborate display. Her chestnut coloured hair cascaded down her, and there was a rosy tinge to her cheeks, making her appear more vibrant than he'd ever seen her before._

_ Cautious, Elijah headed towards her, stopping to hover over her, feeling a familiar pang flick his barely working heart. _

_ She opened one eye, squinting up at him, an innocent smile touching her lips._

_ "You're staring."_

_ "Tatia." He could only manage her name. "What - Where am I?"_

_ "Hovering between life and death while your brother fights your battles for you." Her eyes flickered from his face to the sky, and back again. "If he succeeds, I'm sure you will owe him a lot more than mere gratitude for securing sole possession of your mind."_

_"My brother is saving my life?" Elijah absorbed that; the fact didn't quite ring true in his mind. "Why?"_

_ "Loyalty. Love. Out of some ulterior motive which requires you to be alive as opposed to dead." She smiled. "Knowing Niklaus, I imagine it's all three."_

_ "How did I end up here?"_

_ "Esther is a powerful witch. More powerful than I think even you have given her credit for. My guess is that now her attention is otherwise occupied in stifling Niklaus and his efforts to stop her, she's relinquished possession of your body."_

_ "But she wasn't possessing me. It was something else. A darker part of me," he insisted. "I know because it was like there were two versions of myself dwelling in my body." He lowered his gaze, hot shame pouring through him like blood; it felt stronger than it had ever been, and he wondered if that had to do with the fact that his actions had hurt Elena, someone he'd always admired and felt quiet affection for, even if it had only been in secret. "You had the same problem once, I recall."_

_ "I was never turned, so no, I did not have the same problem," Tatia pointed out. "My blood was spilled as a punishment for coming between Esther's family. This you know, Elijah. Why bring it up?"_

_ His stare bore into hers._

_ "You do no remember the conversation we shared outside my home? The one where you said it felt like you were two different people depending which of us you were around at the time. You said you felt wild and impulsive around my brother, but secure and loved around me. You said that, Tatia, those words are engraved in my memory as though it happened yesterday!"_

_ Her smile became cold, the look in her eyes detached and distinerested. As she rose to her feet, he wasn't quite sure when it became obvious that this wasn't Tatia he was talking to, but Katherine. All he knew was that as cruel and heartbreaking as Tatia had been towards the end, she'd at least remained human, and he could see no evidence of that humanity in her eyes, which led him to the conclusion he'd been talking to Katherine this whole time._

_ "We're all the same you know," she spoke, her voice a soft drawl. "Even my doppelganger bore, Elena, is like me. The innocence you see in her is merely a byproduct of her being human. What if, then, she were to turn? I mean, we all know that's gonna end up being her fate, right? When she turns, she will break your heart, like her ancestors before her. Perhaps it's better to rip out her heart, before she rips out yours."_

_ "Stop it," he growled. "I see what's going on."_

_ "Do you?" Oh he recognised the way Katherine's eyebrows curved upwards, displaying her skepticism in a cold cut manner. "Oh, Elijah. Do you not remember our story? I cared for you more than you know, but your brother burned away every bit of affection I had, turning me into this cold, reckless, admittedly sexy, heartbreaking bitch you've despised all these centuries. Given the way your siblings have treated lovely Elena, I suspect history might just repeat itself all over again."_

_ He turned around, determined to get away from her, but she was there, taunting him with her lilting voice, occasionally adopting a facial expression he would recognise from a memory associated with Tatia, and he became frustrated, anger building up inside of him, a newfound rage ploughed from ground he'd thought he'd managed to skim over and forget. _

_ "This is another trick to poison my mind," he growled at the open air. "I will not succumb to tragic tricks such as this. I am stronger than that."_

_ "But you're not," came Katherine's taunting voice from behind him. "You've fallen for her, hook, line and sinker. So much for not making that common mistake ever again, right?"_

_ He whirled around and lunged but she was gone, her cruel laughing echoing around him, filling him with a dark hatred he never knew he could feel._

See, _something else whispered. _See what falling for the woman who possesses that face does to you? It poisons you from the inside out. End it. End it now. End the cycle.

_And just as he was about to cave, he was plunged back into darkness again, all his thoughts, fears and doubts reflecting all around him like a hall of mirros as he fell back into the realms of consciousness. _

...

Elena couldn't quite believe her own nerve, and where it had taken her. All she knew was that she'd found the slightest glint of humanity in Elijah's otherwise stone cold eyes, and it had stirred some deep desperation in her to coax it all the way out, however she could.

And she couldn't even bring herself to regret the kiss, even after it had happened. She was sure the blank shock in his eyes had been his own - not the manufactured emotion of a robotic version of himself created by his mother. She was stunned by an action she could never take back, and as she leaned back against the chair she'd been chained to, she reflected on the brief history she and Elijah shared, how it began with an authoratitive look from him, her eyes blinking back frightened tears at his visage, progressing to a relationship based around mutual respect and admiration.

Elena couldn't even fathom, even to herself, what it would do if that man she'd respected enough to stand up for against the Salvatores were to ever vanish entirely. She'd seen the violent side of that Elijah's nature, when he'd almost effortlessly ripped off Trevor's head without batting so much of an eyelid, so what a ruthless, emotionless, humanity-less Elijah was capable of, she wasn't quite sure she dared to find out.

When he awoke, there was a split second of absolute clarity, because when his eyes locked on hers, she could see the affection and guilt and absolute fury at what he'd done all blazing across his face, like the darkest shadow buried in the depths of the night, clumsily revealed by a thin veil of moonlight. Part of her feared it was a trick of the mind, something her own thoughts and hopes and desires were projecting out, but wasn't, in fact, real.

Then he spoke, and the rich, gravelly quality to his voice seemed to be like music to her ears; like the chorus of a song you'd almost feared you'd forgotten until the very first words start playing.

"Elena," he spoke, his eyes locked on hers, his body rigid, his hands shaking ever so slightly.

"Elijah?" she replied, her tone laced with caution.

He closed his eyes, clearly still at war with himself, but it seemed, momentarily, he'd regained control.

"I am myself...right now," he informed her, almost as if he needed to confirm what she already knew. "But I cannot hold on for much longer."

"Yes, yes you can," she insisted. "You've held off killing me so far, even though you have me exactly where you want me."

He flinched at her words.

"Do not remind me of the abomination of a mission my mother has set me on," he said, sounding pained. "I should not be around you right now."

"Untie me," she pleaded. "And I can get some help."

"It's admirable your selfless nature should continue to thrive even amongst these dire circumstances, Elena, but we both know what this will turn into," he said, sounding exhausted. "It'll turn into a war you'll be in the middle of and I...I cannot have that."

She grit her teeth, unsure where this sudden need to make sure he kept on fighting came from. It seemed like only yesterday she'd been the key part in ensuring his and his siblings' downfall, and now here she was trying to orchestrate the attempt at rescuing them all. Was this what it was like to walk through the looking glass, and glimpse at what the other side of the coin had to offer? It felt as surreal as that experience would've been, and yet it also felt like the best decision she could've made under those set of circumstances.

"I'll always be in the middle of everything when it comes down to you and your family," she said matter-of-factly. "And I may have made some stupid decisions before, but I know stopping your mother is the right thing to do. If I can help in any way..."

"You are foolish to think you can stop her," Elijah remarked bleakly. "Even dead, she seems to have an army of witches at her disposal. My guess is it won't be long before she calls upon the Bennett line to fulful their duty, and what do you think Bonnie's choice will be, if it's between eradicating the thing she hates most, and preserving the lives of the monsters who have upturned hers?"

"She won't obey Esther, no matter what she promises. Our best friend, Caroline, is a vampire, and Bonnie would sooner die than be responsible for her death."

"Maybe so, but you underestimate the power of my mother. She will use every manipulative trick under the book to employ her services. She is determined to undo her mistake, and she has already proven herself a formidable opponent."

"Elijah..."

He shook his head vehemently, interrupting whatever well intended speech she'd been about to reel off in support of her helping, and she knew he was about to lose the sliver of control he'd managed to acquire during his blackout.

"I am going to untie you," he said slowly, looking at her solemnly, but not quite in that intense way which spoke of intended compulsion. "And you are going to run."

"But - "

"No buts," he emphasised, his voice low, insistent. "You are going to run. About half a mile from here, you'll find a payphone. Call your friends and then _stay the hell away from me." _

She looked hesistant. Hell, she felt hesitant. She didn't owe Elijah anything, but there was this intense desire to help him coarsing through her veins, and if she didn't at least try to help, what kind of person did that make her?

But at the same time, his alter-ego had sneered at her what he was capable of, had told her who his first kill had been, had blanched at her compassion for the vampire race, and it just wasn't in her to ignore the fact she was currently in a very grey area. Was she right to defend a race which, truthfully, had caused her nothing but hell since the moment she'd learned of their existence? Was she right to defend a family with a bloodier history than any periodical group schools taught about?

"Elijah - I can't just not help. That's not who I am," she insisted, biting her lower lip. "You found a way to help me once when there was no other way."

"We had no guarantee it would've worked," Elijah countered. "I fed you false hope, believing in that false hope myself, hoping it would give me a measure of redemption I, quite frankly, don't deserve."

"Nevertheless, you tried," she said in a measured voice. "I'm not going to give up on you."

He stared at her, his stern visage shattering, replaced by a look of confusion.

"Why?"

She thought about the answer for a moment.

"Because I trust you," she said honestly. "And I'd consider you a...friend." _Was that even the right word to use after the way she'd assaulted his lips? _"And friends help friends. No matter what."

He closed his eyes, and she couldn't help but notice at the way his lips turned upwards, if only by a fraction, and she wondered whether Elijah had even had that word thrown at him before..._friend_. Part of the curse of being an Original vampire, she was beginning to realise, was that it came with an eternity of being alone. No one trusted you. Everyone feared you. That had to equal to a pretty lonely existence.

Elena momentarily reeled back at what she'd just done then.

She'd sympathised with the Originals.

Now _that _was screwed up on every level imaginable.

"Please go," he said, a tremor of an unidentifiable emotion rippling through his voice like thunder across a violent sky. "It's too dangerous. I could kill you. In fact, a part of me _wants _to."

"I've heard all of this before," she argued. "I'm not a fragile little flower, Elijah! I can fight my own battles."

"Not against this. Not against her." Elijah let out a frustrated growl, his fingers beginning to break the binds holding her on the chair. "Elena... if your claim to our...friendship is as genuine as I believe it is, you will take yourself to safety. I will compel you, if I have to, although such extremes I hope to avoid entirely."

"But - "

_"Go!"_

And as soon as she was free, Elena, giving him one last look, burst into a run which boasted of a speed she had no idea she was even capable of producing. She pushed herself out of the storage shed, wondering if it was some sort of poetry that at this moment, the skies broke, and a heavy rain came lashing down, which drowned her hair.

Then, just as she turned to see if Elijah had broken free, a strong hand gripped the back of her head, a set of lips crashing against hers, and she was unable to control her own body in that moment. Her hips bucked against his, their hands tangled messily together, before weaving in each other's hair, and just as they broke apart, she gazed up at Elijah, stunned into silence both by his impulsive action - rivalling hers in both intensity and spontaneity - and her own reaction.

"Go," he said, and it was a quiet, sincere, honest instruction, delivered in a way that told her she had to listen to him.

And as Elena flung herself into another run, she had to ask herself where she'd gone so wrong to have kissed an Original - twice, now - and not feel the slightest bit of remorse for it. She could've blamed it on a desperate attempt to get him to keep his humanity...but even her motives for that were questionable, at best. Surely this was a just enough reason to prove the Originals were unstable, and that they needed to be put down, but she wasn't convinced by that.

Ironically, being held hostage by Elijah's family had drilled it into her that not only did they display all the traditional elements of a family - you know, when they weren't trying to rip each other's heads off, and she wished she was being figurative when she thought that - but the fact they would all die for each other, if it came down to it, meant she could relate to them on more levels than she cared to admit.

* * *

**A/n: THANK YOU FOR YOUR REVIEWS. That's pretty much all I have to say here, but I really do appreciate each and every one I get. Next chapter; a reunion with Damon and Stefan, and their thoughts on this situation; Klaus awakens, and informs Kol and Rebekah of a startling new threat; and Elijah continues to battle his darker sider, resulting in tragedy. See you next chapter :)**


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